Anne Waldman

Indefatigeable, irrepressible, poet, teacher and activist, Anne Waldman, Allen’s ‘spiritual wife’, is 66 today. Auspicious numbers. Here‘s Anne, from 2006, reading her memorial poem for Allen, “Notes on Sitting Beside A Noble Corpse”. Here she is with Steven Taylor, and Tyler Burba, sounding out Allen’s Gospel Noble Truths. Here ‘s her and Allen at NAROPA in 1975, vintage audio, (Allen reads “Howl” and Anne reads “Fast Speaking Woman”). Here‘s the home-page for the NAROPA Summer Writing Program. Here‘s a link to her memories of the halcyon days of The Poetry Project (just recently recorded). Here‘s the reading/performance she gave on that occasion. Here are two separate readings of her iconic “Make Up On Empty Space” (the first, from 2002, at Ann Arbor, Michigan, on the occasion of a symposium on her work there, and of the purchase, by the Hatcher Library, of her considerable literary archives; the second, from just two weeks ago, in Montreal, at Voix D’Ameriques, collaborating/improvising with the Brahja Waldman Quintet). Here‘s her reading from the Therigatha at Jewel Heart in 2009 and her “Neurolinguistically: This Is A Writing Dance” from the same occasion. Here‘s a full half hour of her reading at the Prague Writers Festival that same year. Here‘s her in Nicaragua (with Colombian poet Angela Garcia). Here‘s her at Festival Internacional de Poesia de Medellin (subtitled in Spanish). One more reading and discussion, this one, her appearance last year at the New School (now New School University)’s Riggio Forum, discussing her then just recently-published book Manatee/Humanity and on-going project Iovis. Her son, Ambrose Bye, also performs.

A fine extended interview with Molly Schwartzburg, curator of British and American Literature at the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas, Austin, on the occasion of their 2008 “On The Road with the Beats” exhibition can be accessed here. Anne is also video-ed/interviewed by the New York State Writers Institute, and, slightly less formally, by Waylon Lewis for Elephant magazine.

Not to mention a host of printed interviews, among them, with Richard Eskow (2008 for Tricycle) [Editorial note – this one now no longer available], Pam Brown (2010), Amy King (2010) and Sonya Lee Ralph (2011). Eric Lorberer’s 1998 interview for Rain Taxi is also worth seeking out.