Anne Waldman – 1986 Naropa reading

Anne Waldman

continuing from yesterday, Anne Waldman reads (from a July 3, 1986 Naropa reading with Jim Carroll)- see Jim Carroll’s reading and Allen Ginsberg’s introduction – here)

Anne Waldman: This is called Coup de Grace”   (“You say you know what’s up,  what’s what, what is or isn’t true, what’s a modicum or midge of delight.. “…..  your questionable affairs of the heart, yuor table-tops..your jovial belongings in the sense that you belong there too, you”)

“Out There” (for Robert Creeley) – (“You say, this is all there is/I say nothing much to help….”…..”Bob, one of the colors is missing from our world”)
“Eyes in All Heads to Be Looked out Of” – (“Formed a new beast today: Eye of hawk/ heart of lion, radar of bat/Crossed the psychic threshold/the same old set of eyes..”… -“cut…”..”In the voice of a small one breathing through the eye of  a needle – cut!”)

[Following these three poems,  Anne reads a translation]  –  “This is a translation from Christine di Pizan. It’s a Ballade. (She) lived in the 1300’s, died in, probably, 1431″ -(“My heart’s felt no wounds big or small/ from Cupid’s darts, which they say/make war on many…” ” I have no lover and I don’t want one!”),

Christine di Pizan (1364-c.1430)

followed by two short poems,  “Sidney’s Complaynt”  after Sir Philip  Sidney’s “Complaynt” – (“I think I am in love &  yet complain.”…   “Love, love, let me be loved, but let me complain”) & “Queen”  – (“My sandpaper husband who wears sackcloth when I don’t behave says Come sit on rattan, woman. Your will is as brittle as glass…”.”Your tardy poem can’t be coaxed but will come to you like a queen.”), and, an early version of “Bardo Corridor” (“Well, I had my ego & two grams of hash/Sat down in a corridor/Sat down in a spook-light corridor…”in a jewel-tight box corridor roar roar roar”)

“I’m going to read from a piece accompanied, part of it,  I’m just going to read a section of it, music by Gretchen Langheld, with whom I’ve worked periodically with in New York and this is a piece called  “It Sounds It”  – [Anne recites over xylophone accompaniment] –  “began to throb..there are human life forms… who would guess? to be so coy or compare a great thing with a small one & out of all dreaming, this scheme.”

[Next, Anne reads (reading from an early draft)  from the first book of her epic poem, “Iovis”] – “A little bit from this ongoing open work called “Iovis Omnia Plena” (All Is Full Of Jove”), it’s a sort of attention to male energy”  – (“Mature love you say but my wounds come out  through inner temples,/which are participants containing a statue of….female personnel…”…. “serious, dark, tall, European “a saint who competes with my own for my love”

[This reading from Iovis continues on the next tape, picking up in media res]

from Iovis  ” …(white), you paint yourself red we’ll dance to a low eastern bright eye tune and follow that song our bedsheets will be like fire and ice and I’ll have to walk out the next door to close out  the smell of you.””…listen this makes sense.”

And this is by request, I’ll read this for Tamela [Glenn] and then I’ll bring a few musicians up on stage for a couple of short numbers – [Anne reads/performs the chant – “Skin Meat Bones”] – “Skin Meat Bones” (“I come to tell you of the things dear to me/ & what I discovered of skin/ Meat/ BONES”…”AND PROTECT ENDANGERED SPECIES ALSO!”)

Tamela Glenn

[The musical-accompanied portion of the performnce comes next (at approximately four-and-a-quarter minutes in)]

(AW: “I’d like to invite Tamela Glennflautist, to the stage” This is called  “All Hallows Eve  (“My mother’s ghost/is up/in me/as I sit/on a trolley bus..”…. “resigned/ to the/ passing World/ as she was/ always,/ thinking it/ so”)
And this is “Sisters” [Tamela Glenn continues her accompaniment] ” (“First make the mouthpiece classic….  “My sisters say. They are so cruel”)

(AW: “Is Stefano Moreau here?  Stefano Moreau on saxophone”)
This first piece is “A Dialogue Between A Silicon Chip and A Clematis Flower”  (Silicon Chip: I know a lot yet do not live my hearts the mockery yet…”
“….Will you flower again May you call by name?”)

[Stefano Moreau continues to accompaniment Anne with  two further pieces]
This is inspired by the doggerel that Warren Tallman was talking about yesterday in his poetics lecture and also the tape we listened to that Bob Creeley played with the incredible train sound-effects. (sic) So this is, this is a villanelle called “Too Bad Trains” (“I’m very sad about the trains…’ …. “So sad about these old trains”) -And this last is  – “The Tundra & the Waves” ( “I went up to the ocean to see the tundra with my lover who loves the sun”…..”Now only the wind remained. She hums”)

And finally, our drummers, Simon H and Dan Kaplan -and Tamela (Glenn) on a shaker-ette,  no?  shekere? shik? – gourd!  Tamela on the gourd  – [following a a brief pause] -This first piece is called “Ice  (“You’re like ice, you’re like ice, you’re like ice, you’re like ice, you’re like ice..”…..”) – And this last piece is called “Anarchy..”, “Anarchy Reggae“. Anarchy, anarchy (“it touches wire/scarces up a storm – anarchy anarchy, anarchy)”  ……”anarchy, anarchy, anarchy”….”Dear Delicious Anarchy – MANY DARK COLORS.”)

Thank you, thank you very much, goodnight.
[Anne re-introduces her accompanists] Simon H, Dan Kaplan, Tamela  Glenn..  Stefano Moreau on saxophone –  Thank you Jim Carroll.

[Allen Ginsberg concludes the night with a few brief notes re-iterating upcoming events]

AG: So thanks Jim Carroll for a great night and Anne Waldman for her wild new sound. Tomorrow (July 4th) big dance, big party all day long, from 4 p.m on- 4 to 8 – and then dance outside on the lawn, and dance 9.30 to 1 – Saturday night, the distinguished Ed Dorn and equally distinguished Robert Creeley will preside in the hall reading their poetry. So that’ll be a classic night. oLd friends reunited and then at the BCVA on the 8th, Tuesday, Tod Pinney, Susan Noel and Mr Smith, Michael Smith, and I’ll be reading with… Ed Sanders is arriving next week with Steven Taylor to put on their.. to give some hint and part-performance of their great new nuclear-age opera Star Peace  (beginning in the Oval office  with the President singing “This ev-il empire..”). And, for those of you who are going to be around for the end of the poetics (program), the final jamboree of the poetics program will be..it will take place down in Denver at The Turn of the Century, on the 19th, led by Mike Chappelle (of the Gluons) and  his new band Still Life, where Andy Clausen, Anne Waldman and myself will be working with the whole band and synthesizers, and in a nightclub too – it’ll be down at The Turn of the Century..”

Audio for the above can be found here, beginning at approximately fifty-seven -and-a-half-minutes in and concluding at the end if the tape, and also here beginning at the beginning and concluding at the end of the tape

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