Anne Waldman b. 1945 COMPLIMENTS OF THE POETRY FOUNDATION Anne Waldman The author of more than 40 collections of poetry and poetics, Anne Waldman is an active member of the Outrider experimental poetry movement, and has been connected to the Beat movement and the second generation of the New York School. Her publications include Fast Speaking Woman (1975), Marriage: A Sentence (2000), and the multi-volume Iovis project (1992, 1993, 1997). Her work as a cultural activist and her practice of Tibetan Buddhism are deeply connected to her poetry. Waldman is, in her words, “drawn to the magical efficacies of language as a political act.” Her commitment to poetry extends beyond her own work to her support of alternative poetry communities. Waldman has collaborated extensively with visual artists, musicians, and dancers, and she regularly performs internationally. Her performance of her work is engaging and physical, often including chant or song, and has been widely recorded on film and video. Born in Millville, New Jersey, Waldman grew up in Manhattan on Beat poetry and jazz. Early encounters with Leadbelly, Pete Seeger, and Thelonious Monk drew her attention to the full range of musical possibilities in poetry, as did her reading of poets such as Allen Ginsberg and Gertrude Stein. She was educated at Bennington College, where she studied with Howard Nemerov, Bernard Malamud, and Stanley Edgar Hyman. In 1965 she attended the Berkeley Poetry Conference, where the Outrider voices she encountered inspired her to commit to poetry and to found Angel Hair, a small press that published an eponymous magazine and numerous books. Upon graduation she returned to New York and became assistant director, and then director, of the St. Mark’s Church Poetry Project, a role she continued for a decade and where she found support for her own work from poets such as Ted Berrigan, Allen Ginsberg, Diane di Prima, and Kenneth Koch. In 1974, with Ginsberg, Waldman founded the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado. Her honors include grants from the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts, the Poetry Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. She has had residencies at the Civitella Ranieri Center, the Emily Harvey Foundation in Venice, and Rockefeller Center’s Bellagio Center, and has received the Poetry Society of America’s Shelley Memorial Award. She has twice won the International Poetry Championship Bout in Taos, New Mexico. She was “poet in residence” with Bob Dylan’s famed concert tour, the Rolling Thunder Revue, in 1975–76. Waldman has also edited several anthologies, including The Beat Book (1996). She co-founded the Poetry Is News collective with writer/scholar Ammiel Alcalay in 2002. A Phonecall from Frank O’Hara BY ANNE WALDMAN “That all these dyings may be life in death” I was living in San Francisco My heart was in Manhattan It made no sense, no reference point Hearing the sad horns at night, fragile evocations of female stuff The 3 tones (the last most resonant) were like warnings, haiku-muezzins at dawn The call came in the afternoon “Frank, is that really you?” Id awake chilled at dawn in the wooden house like an old ship Stay bundled through the day sitting on the stoop to catch the sun I lived near the park whose deep green over my shoulder made life cooler Was my spirit faltering, grown duller? I want to be free of poetrys ornaments, its duty, free of constant irritation, me in it, what was grander reason for being? Do it, why? (Why, Frank?) To make the energies dance etc. My coat a cape of horrors Id walk through town or impending earthquake. Was that it? Ominous days. Street shiny with hallucinatory light on sad dogs, too many religious people, or a woman startled me by her look of indecision near the empty stadium I walked back spooked by my own darkness Then Frank called to say “What? Not done complaining yet? Cant you smell the eucalyptus, have you never neared the Pacific? ‘While frank and free/call for musick while your veins swell’” he sang, quoting a metaphysician Dont you know the secret, how to wake up and see you dont exist, but that does, dont you see phenomena is so much more important than this? I always love that.” “Always?” I cried, wanting to believe him “Yes.” “But say more! How can you if its sad & dead?” “But thats just it! If! It isnt. It doesnt want to be Do you want to be?” He was warming to his song “Of course I dont have to put up with as much as you do these days. These years. But I do miss the color, the architecture, the talk. You know, it was the life! And dying is such an insult. After all I was in love with breath and I loved embracing those others, the lovers, with my body.” He sighed & laughed He wasnt quite as Id remembered him Not less generous, but more abstract Did he even have a voice now, I wondered or did I think it up in the middle of this long day, phone in hand now dialing Manhattan Cabin BY ANNE WALDMAN eviction people arrive to haunt me with descriptions of summer’s wildflowers how they are carpet of fierce colors I bet you hate to see us they say and yes I do hate to have to move again especially from here destruction brought to place of love the uneven smiles that win she’s a business woman blond tints that glow at sunset as profits rise alas what labor I employ but to ensure a moment’s joy sets branches trembling & arms chilled dear one long returning home, come to clammy feverish details, muffed sorrow I turn to throw a tear of rage in the pot never remorse but hint of scruples I’d hope for it is error it is speculation it is real estate it is the villain and comic slippery words the work of despotic wills to make money I scream take it take your money! make your money go on it’s only money, here’s a wall of dry rot here’s an unfinished ceiling, just a little sunlight peeks through this (lark, no luminance! exquisite St. Etienne stove doesn’t work icebox either too hot or frozen firescreen tumbling down kitchen insulation droops is ugly & a mess ah but love it here, only surface appearances to complain of, nothing does justice to shape of actual events I love but a fight against artificiality its inherent antagonism, bald hatred of moving and problem of thirsty fig tree in Burroughs apartment wakes me I don’t want to go down there yet & how to orchestrate the summer properly the problem of distress & not denying pride from it too atomized to make pleasure of melancholy & an uncontrollable enthusiasm for throne & altar I want to sit high want simple phalanx of power independent of everything but free will & one long hymn in praise of the cabin! it is a confession in me impenetrably walled in like aesthetics like cosmos an organ of metaphysics and O this book gives me a headache dear Weston La Barre let’s have an argument because I see too clearly how rational I must be & the kernel of my faith corrupted because you have no reliance on the shaman & outlaw or how depth of mind might be staggering everywhere except in how important science is science? no he won’t he fooled by visions whereas I wait for dazzling UFOs they announce will arrive high in these mountains I repair the portal even invite stray horses in have a little toy receiving station that sits by the bed at the edge of night all thoughts to place of love all worries to this place of love all gestures to the place of love all agonies to place of love, thaws to place of love, swarthy valley sealed in wood, log burst into flame in home of love, all heart’s dints and machinations, all bellows & pungency antemundane thoughts to palace of love all liberties, singularity, all imaginings I weep for, Jack’s sweet almond-eyed daughter to place of love, & heavy blankets and terracing & yard work & patch work & tenacity & the best in you surround me work in me to place my love dear cirques, clear constraint, dissenting inclinations of a man and a woman, Metonic cycle all that sweats in rooms, lives in nature requiems & momentum & trimmings of bushes dried hibiscus & hawks & shyness brought to this place of love trees rooted fear rooted all roots brought to place of love, mystery to heart of love & fibers and fibers in sphere of love a whole world makes spectators of slow flowering of spring & summer when you walk to town for eggs and continuous hammerings as new people arrive & today we notice for first time a white-crowned sparrow out by the feeder with the chickadees & juncos & I missed that airplane-dinosaur in dream nervous to travel again, miss buds pop open to shudder in breeze, their tractability makes sudden rise of sensibility you are shuddering too & your boy laugh comes less frequent now you’re drawn into accountability, will I return to find all stuff tidy in silver truck ready to go? it’s you in this place I lose most because it’s here in you I forget where I am, this place for supernaturals perched high in sky & wind, held by wind in stationary motion as bluebird we observe over meadow or caught up with jetstream dipping in valley’s soft cradle power & light & heat & radiance of head it takes power & light & heat & radiance of head it takes to make it work while down there someone building replicas of what it feels like to be a human multitude, fantasy molded clumsily, spare my loves and love of glorious architecture when you really put outside in, the feeling of cloud or mountain or stone having developed an idea of idyllic private life & sovereignty of spirit over common empirical demand I tell you about renunciation, I tell you holy isolation like a river nears ocean to dissolve and cabin becomes someone’s idea of a good place discretion you pay for it wasn’t mine either but sits on me imprints on me forever splendor of fog, snow shut strangers out gradual turn of season, ground stir, pine needle tickle your shoulder, peak curve, fresh air.
Posted on: Wed, 23 Oct 2013 20:11:45 +0000
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015