The expansive, countercultural, and wildly prolific life of celebrated poet Anne Waldman, in her own words. In Bard, Kinetic, Anne Waldman assembles a multifaceted portrait of her life and praxis as a groundbreaking poet. Waldman charts her journey through a maelstrom of radical artistic activity: growing up in Greenwich Village, creative partnership with Allen Ginsberg, touring with Bob Dylan, and founding the Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church and later, the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University. She discusses the philosophies that guide her as a writer, activist, performer, instigator, and Buddhist practitioner, and pays homage to friends and collaborators including Amiri Baraka, Lou Reed, John Ashbery, Kathy Acker, and Diane di Prima. Waldman’s experiences serve as a guide for others committed to making the world a conscious and conscientious place that soars with the discourse and activism of poetry and poethics.

This book creates for the reader exactly what the author aches for himself: ¿a temporary transfer to a dark moon¿. There's so much sadly human beauty that pulses through these pages, and we get to know the protagonist, Mordy, as though we stole a diary that we were never supposed to read. But we do read it, and it is impossible to turn our face away from it, because within these pages is the truth that nobody wants to admit about themselves. - E. Lockhardt

An anthology of the best of the beats edited by Anne Waldman (who should know) and containing a chronology of the movement from Kerouac to Snyder. The emphasis is on the the poetry and prose excerpts; However, the volume includes brief biographical sketches, an introduction by Ginsberg, a recommended beat vacation guide of the places where the gang passed out or recovered, and more scholarly references. The writers selected for inclusion represent the core of beat: Corso, Kerouac, Ginsberg, Orlovsky, di Prima, Burroughs, Baraka, Ferlinghetti, Kyger, Kandel, Kaufman, Whalen, McClure, and Snyder. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Set in a decaying town in southern West Virginia, Potted Meat follows a young Aftican-American boy into adolescence as he struggles with abusive parents, poverty, alcohol addiction, and racial tensions.

On a transatlantic flight between Bilbao and New York City, a fictional version of Kirmen Uribe recalls three generations of family history—the inspiration for the novel he wants to write—and ponders how the sea has shaped their stories. The day he knew he was going to die, our narrator’s grandfather took his daughter-in-law to the Fine Arts Museum in Bilbao, the de facto capital of the Basque region of northern Spain, to show her a painting with ties to their family. Years later, her son Kirmen traces those ties back through the decades, knotting together moments from early twentieth-century art history with the stories of his ancestors’ fishing adventures—and tragedies—in the North Atlantic Ocean. Elegant, fluid storytelling is punctuated by scenes from Kirmen’s flight, from security line to airport bar to jet cabin, and reflections on the creative writing process. This original and compelling novel earned debut author Kirmen Uribe the prestigious National Prize for Literature in Spain in 2009. Exquisitely translated from Basque to English by Elizabeth Macklin, Bilbao–New York–Bilbao skillfully captures the intersections of many journeys: past and present, physical and artistic, complete and still unfolding. Bilbao–New York–Bilbao is the second book commissioned for the Spatial Species series, edited by Youmna Chlala and Ken Chen. The series investigates the ways we activate space through language. In the tradition of Georges Perec’s An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris, Spatial Species titles are pocket-sized editions, each keenly focused on place. Instead of tourist spots and public squares, we encounter unmarked, noncanonical spaces: edges, alleyways, diasporic traces. Such intimate journeying requires experiments in language and genre, moving travelogue, fiction, or memoir into something closer to eating, drinking, and dreaming.

Buzz Books 2021 is a treasure-trove of what readers value the most: substantial excerpts from a curated selection of dozens of the most highly-touted books scheduled for publication this fall and winter. Such major bestselling authors as Mitch Albom, Noah Hawley, Natasha Lester, and Richard Osman are featured, along with literary greats Lauren Groff, Ruth Ozeki, Bernard Shlink and. Tiphanie Yanique. Other sure-to-be popular titles are by Patti Callahan, Anna Pitoniak and Shruti Swamy. Buzz Books has had a particularly stellar track record with highlighting the most talented, exciting debut authors, and this edition is no exception. Ash Davidson’s Damnation Spring, Julia May Jonas’s Vladimir, and Claire Oshetsky’s Chouette are among the literary standouts. Our nonfiction selections range from Yrsa Daley Ward’s inspirational guide that includes poetry to Gayle Jessup White, a descendant of Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson on reclaiming her family’s legacy. Bestselling expert on the virtues, Ryan Holiday, addresses courage, while iconic naturalist Jane Goodall offers the Book of Hope. Be sure to look out for Buzz Books 2021: Romance, also out in May, and Buzz Books 2022: Spring/Summer, coming in January 2022.

This spring 2019 edition of Bard College’s literary journal explores the fascination and mystery of night through stories, poems, essays, and memoirs. Scheherazade famously spun stories for a thousand and one nights in order to sustain her life. In recognition of how vital it is to voice our own stories, the stellar works collected here—including entries by Sallie Tisdale, Rick Moody, Joyce Carol Oates, and many others—address our myriad experiences from dusk to daybreak. In this volume, readers will encounter the monster of Kowloon, which relies on the imaginations of children in order to exist. Three men embark on a hallucinatory journey into the snowy pitch-dark night of the soul. Purgatory can be found here, along with ghosts, alternative universes, an East Village bar that doubles as a portal to another life, and a personal chronicle of a visit to Burning Man in Black Rock Desert. Also included are the nightbird Nycticorax, musical nocturnes, night thoughts at solstice, wheeling galaxies, and the cosmos itself. The pioneering nocturnal photography of George Shiras is celebrated in these pages, and the dichotomous world of night versus day in equatorial Uganda is observed by an ethnographic eye.