"At Naropa University's Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, there has long been an illuminating, dynamic, ongoing exchange of ideas about the history and legacy of the Beat Generation--an exchange fortunately that has been carefully archived and preserved. This valuable anthology does not further embalm the 'legend' of the Beats. Instead it allows its readers to hear authentic voices --Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, John Clellon Holmes, Diane di Prima, Philip Whalen, etc.--as well as introducing the thoughtful and responsible work of leading Beat scholars."--Joyce Johnson Amassed from the riches of the Naropa University audio archives, this collection offers an exciting new look at the Beats--whose influence lives on in the art and politics of our time. In this often spontaneous, conversational book, readers are introduced to the hard truths behind being a Beat woman, the haunting accuracy of William Burroughs's world-view, the passion and energy of Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman, Jack Kerouac's unexpected musicality, Diane DiPrima's foray into small press publishing, Michael McClure's account of the famous first reading of "Howl," and, most of all, the inspirations behind America's most provocative and prescient thinkers. Contributors include: David Amram Amiri Baraka Ted Berrigan Junior Burke William S. Burroughs Lorna Dee Cervantes Ann Charters Clark Coolidge Gregory Corso Diane di Prima Lawrence Ferlinghetti Rick Fields Allen Ginsberg David Henderson Abbie Hoffman John Clellon Holmes Joyce Johnson Hettie Jones Edie Parker Kerouac Joanne Kyger Michael McClure William S. Merwin John Oughton Marjorie Perloff David Rome Edward Sanders Gary Snyder Janine Pommy Vega Steven Taylor Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche Anne Waldman Philip Whalen Laura Wright Joshua Zim

With incisive energy, wit, and wisdom, these powerful essays explore the intersection between poetry and politics.

New from celebrated poet and performer Anne Waldman - an edgy, visionary collection that meditates on gender, existence, passion and activism Mythopoetics, shape shifting, quantum entanglement, Anthropocene blues, litany and chance operation play inside the field of these intertwined poems, which coalesced out of months of protests with some texts penned in the streets. Anne Waldman looks to the imagination of mercurial possibility, to the spirits of the doorway and of crossroads, and to language that jolts the status quo of how one troubles gender and outwits patriarchy. She summons Tarot's Force Arcana, the passion of the suffragettes, and various messengers and heroines of historical, hermetic, and heretical stance, creating an intersectionality of lived experience: class, sexuality, race, politics all enter the din. These are experiments of survival.