Anne Waldman Reads @ City Lights Books (10/18/06)

I arrived 10 minutes early to a room only 2/3 full but by the time I heard “Hello Anne” waft up from downstairs, there was barely standing room. Anne’s presence immediately gave life.


my
tying
undying knot
wooden sound
knock knot
knock knock

*
my eye
cannot
unsee you
you are
right now
so sound
of airplane
and silent

breathing


It swelled. Anne reads with extreme intonation, viz. she elongates the music within words rather than place words inside of a melody that is outside of them. (Would you live yr life like you write a poem… would you make it formless? wou-ld you step without looking? would you jump from pond to river - complete purpose unknowing--) The intonation belongs to the words as a matter of fact. For example, “neurons” are more like NOOOR-ons­ NOOOR-on­s­ with an octave jump up on the second syllable. Her speech effected me, locked me into the words - one poem ended with a “woonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnndddeer” that filled me with anticipation for the next word (the preceding tempo was high) and yet, that was it. The poem ended.

Podium rocked.

Anne had two new works that her reading focused on. Her book, Beat Roots, is paragraph poems about the good ol’ days with the usual “beat” suspects, as well as Robert Creeley, Amiri Baraka, and a handful of others. She also played tracks from a recorded collaboration with cunning linguist and musician, Ambrose Bye. Here is some of the wisdom resurrected from forgotten:



"You can always match their power w/ words. Stay Candid.”

“A chair is a weapon. Stand yr ground.”

The first attributed to Allen Ginsberg and the latter Burroughs, and when surrounded by Waldman’s words, make good sense. The new book is hand bound by Hot Whiskey Press. Waldman leaves today to go back to Naropa, in Boulder Colorado, where she will teach this summer.

(Note: The two short poems at the beginning were written during moments of transition during the reading and are not Anne Waldman's, hence "my".)