poets, playwrights, jazz musicians (in high school, really. I went to Quaker fact Isadore Duncan danced at St. Mark's high school in Manhattan and had quite Church)...St. Mark's had always been an an excellent religion teacher, and I've arena for the avant garde in experimental been very charged by some of the arts since the 1920's, and there had been Buddhist ideas, some of the theatre/film and poetry readings prior psychological ideas. So I started going to to this, so the grant didn't occur out of the Tail of the Tiger in 1970. Later, Allen the blue. There was a lot of activity [Ginsberg] met Chumpa. Diane going on already, so for about two years DePrima, of course, had been a student the grant was able to fund poets, of Suzuki Roc.he's, but also is now more teaching, readings, a magazine, etc., and of a Tibetan Buddhist student and Anne Waldman practitioner. The three of us came as then after that, we had to seek funding. I had just graduated from Bennington representatives of a kind of poetry, to College (in Vermont) in 1966. I had occur with this situation, in 1974, the grown up and lived on McDougal Street first summer [at Naropa]. Gregory 5. Bateson was here, John Cage, Jackson nne Waldman is the author of many books of poetry, including Fast in . I had been involved, at the age of McLowe, some other poets, and we met Speaking Woman, Journals and Dreams, Makeup on Empty Space, and a 18, in a play at St. Mark's, and I knew with Chumpa, who invited us to begin a Invention. Her most recent books are Sin Meat Bones, and The Romance Thing. Her some of the people who worked around school. Allen and I and Diane came out recent performance work indudes experiments with music, dance and video. Her and we taught workshops and all gave video "Uh-Oh Plutonium" won a Blue Ribbon at the American Film Festival in there, and then applied when the project seemed to be getting off the ground, for readings. Ram Das was here, it was a 1985. She is current Director of the year-round Department of Writing and Poetics an assistanceship job. Joel Oppenheimer very colorful summer. Quite energetic. at The Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado. She has given readings and was made the director and so I was one The summer of 1974. So Diane, Allen performances and taught workshops across the United States and in Europe. Ms. of his assistants for the first two years. and I started making copious lists, our Waldman has taught at Stevens Institute of Technology, New College of San The second year I became the official vision for a poetic school. This quote Francisco, York University in Toronto, the Institute of American Indian Arts in assistant director, and then the third from a John Ashbury poem kept sticking Santa Fe, New Mexico and is on the adjunct faculty of the University of Maine at in my mind which is, "the academy of Orono. She is a member of the Committee of International Poetry and visited year, I became the director, working the future opening its doors to us," India in 1985 as a guest of the Indian government to work with the Festival of there until 1978. which I took as a kind of message about India, which brought Indian poets to the United States in the Spring of 1986. She RITKES: You and founded the School of Naropa and we settled on the name the visited Nicaragua in 1987, as a member of the Nicaraguan Cultural Alliance. Disembodied Poetics... Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied WALDMAN: Poetics. Allen We were invited had strong out here the first feelings about My interest is in egoless Jack Kerouac by Dan Ritkes summer, 1974, points of view, where one's along with Diane being the whole identity isn't at stake spiritual DePrima, invited in terms of their point of view. to teach and read reference point poetry. We met because of his Truka Tchumpa interest in ITKES: For a little background, I Side. A grant from the Johnson in New York. Actually, I had met him in Buddhism and because of his wonderful rzwanted to ask you about your administration's Office of Economic 1970 at what was then called the Tail of spontaneous composition—especially involvement with the poetry project at Opportunity, was given to help the Tiger Meditation Center in Vermont, evident in Mexico City Blues, and that St. Mark's. administer an arts program that would a small Buddhist Center, a farm house. I being a foundation and inspiration of WALDMAN: The poetry project began benefit alienated youth in that was very intrigued by his teaching style. what we wanted to do. Spontaneity in 1966, at St. Mark's Church in .the neighborhood (the Lower East Side). I've been interested in Tibetan arising out of nothing in a way. Kerouac in 's Lower East There was a precedent in that artists and Buddhism for a number of years, since was both a poet and prose writer who

232 233 the many younger poets that I was mother of five whose families came own poets write. Their soldiers are these issues are very much alive. It's affiliated with around the St. Mark's apart after the revolution and she was encouraged to write poetry themselves. beyond a political point of view. I'm not Poetry Project could identify with. Then very active herself. Her husband wanted After a battle they'll join around a allied with a fixed point of view or the following summer we invited a her to step back and become campfire and recite poetry. I haven't political party because those are number of poets to come, including domesticated again, but she just couldn't been to Russia, constantly Diane again, John Ashbury, Gregory give up the struggle and is very active but there is a shifting. My Korso, William Burroughs, Bill Merman working with the Officina the Mujaras similar sense of I work the way a filmmaker interest is in and a number of others and peripheral which is an organization that educates the Russian might by arrangement and egoless points of people sensing a magnetism. Things women about their legal rights — poets being very bringing a disparate piece view, where kicked off quite nicely that next summer property and marriage and so on. I was important to the from here, arranging that over one's whole and became year-round in 1976. The so impressed by the women I met. I:liana general there, ordering it in a very identity isn't at poetics department and Naropa itself. Rodrigues, who's the head of the populace. It's different way. It's a different stake in terms of RITKES: I'm interested in your recent Bibliotech Nationale and Cardinale's equivalent to experience than the their point of trip to assistant. Terrific pop music and spontaneous poem that just view. So I'm Nicaragua. What writers; very song lyrics in arises. very wary of those kinds of brought that For me the poem is still a strong. I've never this culture or about? seen women following the positions, yet I kind of performance and feel that some of WALDMAN: I experience and a proccess of liberated to such lives of sports was invited the enactment on the page. an extent. It's heroes. If you said you're a poet in the work is expressing a human outrage. year before but true they have Nicaragua it actually meant something RITKES: Do you find in writing that wasn't able to this backdrop of instead of a complete blank stare. A lot there are any pitfalls or any difficulties come to the revolution and of people within the Sandanista in writing about social issues? annual Reuben Barrio Festival which is they're quite unified in that, but there government are themselves poets. The WALDMAN: If that's all one was doing, held January 18th honoring their major was tremendous — cultural attache is a poet; the Minister of yes definitely. It gets very one-note or poet, Rueben Barrio. He was a RITKES: Was the poetry festival a series Culture...a lot of the commandantes too strident, or isn't really effective the revolutionary and quite a beautiful lyric of readings? actually write poetry as well. It's way a poet would want it to be. But poet; quite elegant. So they have an WALDMAN: Readings, some something that a person of heart there is also great political poetry. Allen annual poetry conference and festival discussion of Nicaraguan literature, addresses himself or herself to. Ginsberg, Denise Levertov, all the poets which invites poets from all over the panels held in Spanish. Mostly at the RITKES: Is the poem you read the other I've known and admired have made world. We were hosted very modestly Bibliotech Nationale. Some of the night on contras, that chant poem, did certain kinds of political statements— but warmly. It's the Cultural Ministry American poets gave readings in coffee that come out of your experience? political in the big sense. I think yes, of that supports this yearly event and houses. WALDMAN: I wrote that right before I course, if you're just sort of complaining several poets came. There was a RITKES: Are people in Latin America went down there last summer. The and writing out of a paranoia or putting contingent from Maine, several former more interested in their poets? contra chant is just a meditation on the down the so-called other side, there's a Naropa students: Joe Ritchie, Ethlynne WALDMAN: I'd say it's part of their word contra. danger. Sterns, and Elliot Greenspan all went. culture. A very important part of their RITKES: How do you feel about poetry RITKES: Do you feel a certain Some poets from Washington including culture. In the opening event, that has sort of political bent to it, or a responsibility as a poet to deal with Lamont Steptoe, a black writer who Comandante Thomas Borge in his poem that is involved with social issue. social issues? works with the Painted Bride Quarterly, speech said that poetry would hurt the Is that something that you consciously WALDMAN: Of course. the art center from Philadelphia and revolution. You don't hear that very try to do? RITKES: A lot of writers don't A lot of Sonia Sanchez, a black poet of great often. And that it was important that WALDMAN: Speaking for myself great writers don't. distinction and we gave some group people are as strong as poets. personally, it's a way for me to express WALDMAN: We'd have to talk about readings. Some of our work had been RITKES: Is poetry accessible to people my emotions and connections to certain examples because I think a lot of writers translated into Spanish so we were able in Nicaragua? issues. It's certainly not all I do, but it's do it in a bigger way, maybe. It's not to communicate. So I was able to stay WALDMAN: Yes, I'd say it is. There is a one aspect. I find I can communicate addressing a local situation. My with a wonderful Nicaraguan woman small publishing situation there. People something that way: whether it's rage or definition of what political poetry is, is poet in her forties; a revolutionary, know and memorize work that their passion or a psychological state in which quite broad. In a way it's witness, the

234 235 poet as witness to whatever is going on. RITKES: You sometime accompany for an event or performance or ritual mediocre get all sorts of media attention Telling things as they are without your work with music. Almost like a enactment. Lyrics have their place and and money, while poets who might have necessarily attitudinizing or projecting song. Is that a distortion of what a poem some will work better than others on the more cleverness in their work get very their own opinion onto you. is? I often think of a poem as something page, but there is an understanding little media exposure and can't make a RITKES: It's ironic, but Allen [Ginsberg] that's on a printed page. Is adding music they're meant or were composed or living strictly at writing? would probably say that he would never getting away, or is it getting back to — designed with sound in mind. That WALDMAN: I agree that there's often start out writing a political poem, yet WALDMAN: It gets back to tradition. I poem came to me in its sound. I woke to more talent [among poets], except there that is very often what he comes up enjoy working with music. I hear music. that. I heard that. That was the poem for is a whole realm, the whole rock music with. I have musical ideas with certain pieces. me. It wasn't just words on a page. Some world that has its own reality and set of WALDMAN: There are things going on And I have tons of work that wouldn't work demands to be expressed that way. conditions and demands. You often have in poetry on a lot of levels. For me the lend itself to that kind of treatment and I put off publishing that poem for many to be very single-minded. It's another play on the word "contra" then "contro" is better off on a page or is too long in years for that reason, because it wasn't way of working. People can dance to it. versus contumateous (sic), diction, the performance context. I don't write effective on the page. There is a long It has its own level. It's something that contradiction, contratempo...there is a lot songs in the traditional sense. I'm not poem in the book, Skin, Meat, Bones the general populace can relate to. It's of play in a pure language level in that writing song- lyrics. I'm writing poems entitled, "Science Times" which is in not too high-brow. It's not necessarily work. Then there is that are very these very, very dense stanzas. I think challenging. It doesn't concern itself the whole meaning. musical and lend it's 20 pages and is actually written for with big issues. It doesn't make you face I was exploring the themselves to the page. It's a poem I've read very your own death. There are exceptions, of meaning of that The whole rock music musical rarely. And then there's one collage course. We all know what those are. word. world has its own reality accompaniment — work which is working with a number There have been incredible geniuses RITKES: What and set of conditions and or not. My voice is of voices and other words and text and within that realm who have touched the interested you in the demands. It's another way the primary is put together. I may overhear lives of millions of people. performance aspect? of working. It doesn't instrument. something and write it down or get RITKES: Poetry does a lot of things WALDMAN: I just concern itself with big Frankly, I enjoy the some ideas out of a particular text or music does. like to get up issues. It doesn't make collaboration. I've whatever, and incorporate some of that WALDMAN: Well, maybe you just can't there. ..it's a ritual you face your own death. also worked with information and vocabulary. I work the dance to it enough. I don't feel that's an for me. Ecstatic dancers. I've way a filmmaker might by arrangement ax I want to grind particularly. I've been often. I feel I can worked where the and bringing a disparate piece from able to work and travel...I've travelled convey what I dance is a musical here, arranging that over there, ordering with the scene and met mean, or the accompaniment; it in a very different way. It's a different various figures whom I respect and have psychological state of emotion or the just completely silent sometimes. I've experience than the spontaneous poem enjoyed their music. I've touched into pure play of sound through my body worked images that way as well. The that just arises. There are many ways of certain members of the Rolling Stones and my voice. And, as I said in my work has to stand on the page, first of working. The work also demands its and actually appreciated what they did lecture, the work is built into what the all. For example the title poem of my own way of being presented. I'm musically. And the Beatles...certainly poet is potentially capable of. And the book, Skin-Meat-Bones: that poem interested in a wide range of methods John Lennon was a tremendous genius word "performance" has this sort of new printed is a text for an oral performance and constantly being available to the and had to work within those mediums meaning which is connected to more than any of the other poems in the poem that arises through me, wherein and forms and was able to really performance art. It's much more organic. book, and yet I think it works as text on I'm the instrument on which it's playing. communicate on a lot of levels. I don't I don't even like to label it. It's true that the page. I have a note about the word I love working vocally on a stage think every poet is capable of doing that. many poets just get up and speak or "skin" being in a high register that the environment, playing out certain Allen [Ginsberg] has achieved a certain read their work. poem is meant to be sung or chanted. musical ideas, collaborating with any culture figure stature through his work RITKES: Some don't even read it. "Meat" in the middle register, and number of different kinds of musicians and also who he is. William Burroughs. I WALDMAN: Many don't. But for me "bones" in a bass register. It's almost a from contemporary to dassical to consider cross-over kinds of artists like the poem is still a kind of performance transcription for a performance. improvisational jazz to pop form. It's very important. I think and experience and a process of Rothenbaz's anthology, "Technicians of endless. of her more as a musician. I don't feel enactment on the page. the Sacred" has a lot of native American RITKES: How do you feel about the fact envious or cheated or like that's secretly pieces in there which have instructions that a lot of musicians whose lyrics are my desire. Every young kid at some

236 237 tendency to write in abstractions, which point wants to do that and that, to stuff...to be carnage for alligator of my own simultaneously, just finished is confused with poetry being an everybody can do that. I had one rock mummies, or whatever. I don't feel I editing two anthologies, travelling abstract realm. Dreamy, hazy or feeling pop record, "Oh, Plutonium" — have have less of a life because I'm not a rock around performing my work, working good or feeling sad and actually when you heard that? That actually worked with dancers, musicians, etc. It's just one star. with that form. And it was quite What problems do you find you start to write a poem describing of many possibilities. If I were in that itrnam everything in your room, or sketch that successful within a certain realm. I with people's writing when they're just world more I would love to produce an person's face sitting opposite you, or wasn't being produced by a major Starting to write poetry? anthology recording of poets breaking write down something you overheard, record company and so on and so forth, WALDMAN: There is often a into those popular forms. That question or go back to being seven years old and but it really got around and got a lot of znisamception about what poetry is, that comes up a lot. Sometimes there is a rut, focus on memory. Or write a 20-page response and reviews and yet took an It is dream, vague and general or else because it seems unfair, but like many work which has ten epiphanies. Try to incredible amount of time for a that you're the only person in the world situations, it's unfair. You could go into feel them, taste them, touch them. Use three-minute song. I worked on a video who has had these experiences and the visual art world, how people get one all your sense perceptions to literally of that again. It took a phenomenal product, one style going which they you've lived to tell them, and you're amount of the kind of time I occasionally constantly projecting this ego— which describe. That's what we do here. Get make money on and then they just keep people down to tangibles. You can have and want to play with. There is a repeating themselves and make a lot of HMIs to get in the way. I've gone demand for that form which requires through student's poems that have the always get back to the other feelings money and have this Product. Whereas later. When I was very young I kept a that sort of attention. You work with personal pronoun "I" a hundred times poets don't have a product. Because journal, and my father said just write multitracks, do this version and that poetry is not marketable it keeps it on one page. You can simply point that version, take one and take 29 and take out and underline them in red and down the details, the tangibles, where somewhat purer. It keeps people's you are, what you see, what you hear, 50, and you're working with other actually point out that you don't have to intentions clearer. You're doing it out of about it. I feel musicians, you're working with your always be the reference point of your rather than how you feel necessity. You're not doing it to get good today; I feel bad today. Once you producer, you're working with their anywhere with it or to become rich and own poetry. Or taking out words like idea of market plays. "Oh, Plutonium" is "past," "dream," "forever," "eternity" — get those specifics, you will remember famous or to become the most popular how you were feeling. You don't always an anti-nuke song, and I felt that if I'm weak language, basically, which doesn't thing since sliced bread. You're doing it have to point to that emotional level. going to work in because you have further the image or the sound or the this medium, I to. If you have to substance of the poem at all. I think a want it to be be a doctor or somewhat Poets don't have a Product. Because poetry is not insurance political; I mean salesman Or I'm marketable it keeps it not somewhat purer. It keeps janitor, so what? I interested in just people's intentions clearer. don't want to get scratching my You're doing it out of too holy about it, head and necessity. You're not doing it or spiritual, but When I was very young I kept a journal, and my father crooning about to get anywhere with it or to you have to said just write down the details, the tangibles, where you the moon and become rich and famous or to honor the world stars. If I'm are, what you see, what you hear, rather than how you feel become the most popular as sacred. We're about it. going to work thing since sliced bread. living in a version with that which of reality where is a very things are powerful marketed. But medium, I want to work with some sort that's just a version. Poetry and music of communication of something that I and great artists existed all the time in would hope would wake people up a and out, serving needs or not serving little further. It was very, very needs or being indulgent shlock, or fad demanding. At this point, I'm running a and fashion, or else surviving like little poetic school, developing an MFA fragments of Sappho on Sarcopohogus program, working on about three books Papyrus that was used like newspaper

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