About Anne Waldman
Anne Waldman (born April 2, 1945 in Millville, New Jersey) is an American poet, scholar, writer, and political activist. Since the 1960s, Waldman has been an active member of the Outrider poetic community. In the 1960s, she became a major author of the East Coast poetry scene, joining the artists dubbed the Second Generation of the New York school. During this period, Waldman met the poet Allen Ginsberg, who called her his spiritual wife. From 1966-1968 she worked as assistant director of the Poetry Project at Saint Mark, then from 1968 to 1978 she became its director. By the end of the decade, Waldman was studying Buddhism. Indeed, in 1970 she accompanied Allen Ginsberg in the study of this religion with the Tibetan Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. In 1974, along with Trungpa, Ginsberg, and others, Waldman founded the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado. There she became a distinguished poetry teacher, as well as the director of the very famous Naropa's famous Summer Writing Program. Waldman advocates social change. In the 1970s, she became involved in the activities of the Rocky Flats Truth Force, an organization opposed to the Rocky Flats nuclear plant located 10 km south of the city of Boulder. Along with Daniel Ellsberg and Allen Ginsberg, she is arrested for protesting outside the factory. She is also a spokesperson for American feminism, environmental struggles, and a human rights activist. She is also committed against the war, in the collective Poets Against the War, and in this context she organizes protest actions in New York and Washington.Browse all poems and texts published on Anne Waldman
