/ News, Events, People

Anne Waldman Committed to Keynote Lecture

Anne Waldman

The distinguished poet Anne Waldman confirmed that she will present a keynote lecture in the form of a poetry reading from her work from 1960s onward. The conference organization is thrilled and honored that two speakers of the stature and import of Anne Waldman and Ed Sanders agreed to fly all the way across the Atlantic to be with us. Photograph: Greg Fuchs.

The American poet, scholar, performer, and activist Anne Waldman has published well over thirty books of and on poetry and received many prestigious awards, the most recent ones being an American Book Award (Lifetime Achievement Award, 2015), a Guggenheim Fellowship Award in Poetry (2013), and a PEN Center Literary Award in Poetry (2012).

From 1966–1968, she served as Assistant Director of the Poetry Project at St. Mark's in New York and from 1968–1978, she served as the project's director. Together with Allen Ginsberg and others she founded the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado — now Naropa University — in 1974, where she remains a Distinguished Professor of Poetics and the Director of Naropa's Summer Writing Program. Her artistic collaborations and friendships span across disciplines and have involved people like William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Meredith Monk, Laurie Anderson, Don Cherry, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, Daniel Ellsberg and many, many more.

At the conference, Anne Waldman will perform selected poetry from her vast body of work from the 1960s onward.