For me poems are acts re-done, and that can vibrate well into the future. Anne Waldman More Quotes by Anne Waldman More Quotes From Anne Waldman The beat literary movement is strong because of those very challenging and individual relationships and styles and contention and so on. So I just feel blessed by this kind of opportunity that came from it. It was a kind of seed. Anne Waldman strongblessedopportunity In a way, America's the shadow of everything I do, everywhere I go, everything I carry, no matter if I travel to the ends of the earth. And I live frequently on the spine of the continent, near the Great Divide. Then there's the side of it being the real energy center for a truly post-postmodernist poetry mind, which is also archaic, because we can still be close to the land. Anne Waldman landrealamerica There's a kind of training, when you are sitting in a session in the Japanese tradition or any of the Buddhist traditions, taking your lotus posture or whatever it is. That's what you're doing. Anne Waldman lotusesbuddhisttraining How can you work on letting your thoughts go and getting synchronized into the moment and questioning your wild imagination. But I say just think of all the great Japanese and Chinese poets and scholars who were also meditators. Anne Waldman chinesewild-imaginationthinking The sense of traveling this continent, also other continents. The friendship.I would say a non-competitive friendship. That is so amazing to me. Anne Waldman continents The sense of the preciousness of the body - vehicle for poetry. Anne Waldman vehiclebody [Jack] Kerouac looking at the fellaheen worlds. Looking at other cultures. Welcoming it, curious. Really stepping outside his own limited, whatever that narrow world was. It's amazing to think we can do it. We can have that same kind of trajectory of mind. Anne Waldman other-culturesmindthinking I did go to Vietnam in 2000 as a kind of pilgrimage and to feel my generation was very much a part of this. I felt responsible but also connected and empathetic. It was a very complicated relationship we had, whichever side you were on. The shock of being there was very few people my own age - I was primarily in the North in the streets of Hanoi. A whole generation was essentially decimated. Anne Waldman complicated-relationshipagepeople Connection to Buddhism is strand in my life. Anne Waldman strandsbuddhismconnections We had much more imagery from Vietnam war. The media was not controlled. The storyline, the master narrative was not controlled. I thin it was some those images really radicalized people and shifted things to some extent. And the Viet Cong also, their tenacity. Anne Waldman mediawarpeople My teachers were often very eccentric. Anne Waldman eccentricteacher I think Visions of Cody is the most radical book in terms of poetic stretch and the way Jack Kerouac is able to incorporate documentation and incorporate the live tape recording of Neal and so on. Anne Waldman visionbookthinking It was really hard coming to terms with the Nazi history. Then in my twenties I was traveling to Germany. There was a lot of poetry activity and some of my first readings abroad and trying to relate with people my own age there and what they were discovering and learning had to examine in terms of their backgrounds. Then so many of my friends had family who had either perished in the holocaust or survived in the holocaust. It was very palpable. Anne Waldman holocaustreadingpeople I think the idea of the lone tormented artist - which we can apply to others - I think that it needs to be revisited. Jack Kerouac needs to be seen in the context of a lot of other artistic activity. Anne Waldman artistideasthinking The dichotomies, the brokenness of the culture around things like the Vietnam war, and then a lot of it has to do with war and where we put our energy and money and attention. And the military industrial complex, which dominates our whole economy. Even with the vision of democracy in other places we know the dark side. Anne Waldman militarydarkwar Allen's [Gisberg] loyalty to his friends was extraordinary. And as he was dying he was calling people: "What can I do for you before I die? Do you need money? What can I do?". Anne Waldman loyaltydyingpeople The whole red state/blue state thing is very interesting. Watching that shift over the years. Anne Waldman blueyearsinteresting World War II synchronizes things for a lot of people. There's a kind of wakeup call. Anne Waldman warpeopleworld I don't demonize the downside. As we've seen in Egypt and Tahrir square and other recent event, the adhesiveness through [technology] kinds of communication is extraordinary. Interesting times we live in. Anne Waldman communicationtechnologysquares I'm concerned about the overuse of spectacular places. And there's no real wilderness left and so there's a heartbreak there. You can go anywhere and be rescued through your cell phone and have some helicopter drop down. Anne Waldman phonescellsreal
