Poetry is news that stays news: Anne Waldman

At age 72 and nearly a half decade as a published poet, Anne Waldman is the high priestess of American poetry, especially its experimental frontiers. Over the decades, Waldman has been associated with many of the avant garde poetic movements in the US - the Beat poets, the New York School, the Black Mountain Poets, etc. Waldman's poetry is like a force of nature - passionate, powerful and recondite - as is her incantatory recitation of her verses, as audiences who heard her at this year's Zee Jaipur Literature Festival (ZeeJLF) earlier this year will tesfity. Gargi Gupta spoke to Waldman who will also be the star speaker at the Boulder extension of ZeeJLF next weekend. Edited excerpts from the email interview:

You were at the ZeeJLF this year? Did you feel the audience 'got' your performance? What are your impressions of the festival?

I was astounded by the very open reception for my keynote address at Zee-JLF - both commentary and performance. The audience is well attuned to events of the time: literary, political, psychological. And spiritual. I was talking about looking at the darkness of our time and this was understood, and also how art is a way through the paralysis we sometimes feel.

There were so many other writers, poets, scholars, thinkers, political journalists and the like, engaged and available. From all over the world. What a cacophony, a celebration and a place of gnosis. I met the terrific young UK poet/performer Kate Tempest for the first time.

How do you compare ZeeJLF to the other literature festivals you've visited?

This is one of the most cogent, imaginative, wild, elegant and FREE and available to all; and of the most expansive and stimulating nature. I was delighted to see so many students - and many women - participating with such engagement, and asking sharp, penetrating questions.

You founded the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics. How do you teach someone to write poetry (unlike, say, a novel or a script for a film)?

I think one can set an example as a person on a path with poetry. I try to communicate my passion, my sense that this is "the only game in town" and that poetry "is news", as Pound said, that "stays news".
And one can teach key texts. Classic and contemporary. Our workshops always include the study and the reading of literary texts. We might travel from the Gita to the younger Native American poet Layli Long Soldier. One can expand students' minds with a conviction about the power and beauty and necessity of literature, as a way into understanding our own humanity, its confusion, its suffering; its evolution, its history its emotional construct. Read read read…that's always the message.

Are you clued into the poetry scene in India today? What do you think of it?

The work of prose writers crosses more readily to the USA than poetry. They are readily available. In poetry: I am familiar with Meka Shivdasani's anthology and Jeet Thayil's. I did a talk on Kamala Das in Kerala a few years back. I am in touch with the "Almost Island" poets and have been a guest of theirs in Mumbai. I think the exchange is so important. I had met in Kolkata the Hungry Poets Allen Ginsberg knew in the 1960s…I am always curious about their legacy.

You curated the Poesia en Voz Alta in Mexico City earlier this year with poets from all over Latin America - how is their voice different?

There's a daring performative aspect, as in the radical, transgressive work of Guillermo Gomez Pena and the tight lyrical intelligence of Coral Bracho. Raul Zurita of Chile is a brilliant forceful poet; his poems strike deep in the heart for the "soul" of his country and the suffering under Pinochet. He spent time in prison.

What are your poetic inspirations?

To create poems that speak to the conscience of our dystopia, that rise above it and investigate it, that are anti-Empire, that can chant into a new frequency of empowerment for right now and the times ahead. Poetry still puzzles the mysteries of existence and language.

How has Buddhism affected your work?

Buddhism values the power of mental acumen and waking up; the root of the word Buddhism is to "wake up". I inhabit various states of mind, in my poetry, involving many deities - dakinis - in Buddhism. Both peaceful and wrathful. My next book is entitled "Trickster Feminism."

You were part of the Occupy protests - why did the movement fail?

Occupy continues in many aspects of the activist work in the USA. It was a start, and created memes like the "1%". Of course those folks run Washington politics now, but they have been exposed. More than ever. Occupy veterans are very busy, helping people during catastrophes. I am part of a group called The Federation and we are planning a nationwide Art Action Day for Jan 20, 2018. Keep the world safe for art and poetry and literature and visionary projects like ZeeJLF! Stay tuned.