Wordspace: Anne Waldman
Outrider

Anne Waldman, poet, performer, professor, and cultural activist, holds the lineages of The New American Poetry in her DNA. She is the author of numerous books of poetry including Fast Speaking Woman, In the Room of Never Grieve, Structure of the World Compared to A Bubble, and, most recently, Outrider from La Alameda Press. She is also the editor of The Beat Book, and co-editor of Civil Disobediences: Poetics & Politics in Action. Waldman is the Chair of the Summer Writing Program at The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University in Boulder and the director for Study Abroad on The Bowery in New York City. Allen Ginsberg called her his “spiritual wife”. Anne Waldman has been speaking about the “outrider” tradition since 1974 as a way to describe poetry as both “wild mind” and “speaking truth to power.” Much of her work has also been as a tireless organizer and lightning rod in the community of writers throughout the world. Outrider gathers essays, poems, rants, and interviews in an attempt to articulate a sense of this tradition from Walt Whitman to the present. One of the pioneers in poetry as performance, she always presents a fierce, loving, and exciting approach to what poetry can be. “Waldman maps this ‘out’ dimension as a visionary poetic landscape where compassion and commitment are still possible.”—Michael Golston

$5 at the door. Available in advance, by phone or in person, at the Outpost Performance Space (268-0044)