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Thank you, Laynie That
was a lovely reading.

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Our last reader of the poetry
series section of the festival

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is Anne Waldman.

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And it is a great honor for
me to introduce her to you

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and tell you a little
bit about her work.

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I met Anne when I was in
graduate school at Naropa

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University.

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And she's a venerable poet
that I've had the good fortune

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to study with, engage with,
share community with, and call

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a friend, which means
more than anything else.

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Anne Waldman has
been an active member

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of the Outrider Experimental
Poetry community for over 40

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years as a writer,
performer, professor, editor,

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Magpie scholar,
infrastructure and

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cultural political activist.

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She has also
collaborated extensively

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with a number of artists,
musicians, and dancers.

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She grew up on McDougal
STREET in Greenwich Village,

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where she still lives, and moved
to Boulder, Colorado in 1974,

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when she co-founded the Jack
Kerouac School of Disembodied

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Poetics with Allen Ginsberg
at Naropa University, where

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she currently directs their
celebrated summer writing

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program.

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She is the author of over 40
books of poetry, including

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Fast Speaking Woman, which
was recently reissued,

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Kill or Cure,
Marriage: A Sentence,

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Structure of the World Compared
to a Bubble, The Poetic Text

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Outrider, In the Room of
Never Grieve, New and Selected

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Poems, Manatee Humanity, out
through Penguin Poets 2009,

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and her most recent
book, as well as

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a small chapbook put
out by Chax Press,

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in the occasion of this
reading called Matriot Acts.

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Her work has been translated
into Italian, Czech,

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and French.

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And she has edited and co-edited
a large number of anthologies,

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including Beat Book, The
Hare Angel Anthology,

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Civil Disobediences, Poetics and
Politics in Action, and Beats

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at Naropa.

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She also helped found the poetry
project at St Mark's Church

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in the Bowery, which she
directed for over a decade.

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Her play, Red Noir, played
off Off-Broadway at the Living

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Theatre and was directed by
theater legend Judith Marlena

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just recently this year.

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And Waldman has also been an
activist for social change,

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a student of Buddhism, a
culturally active feminist,

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and an ambassador for the
oral revival of poetry

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throughout her
entire artistic life.

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Recently, she
returned from India,

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where she lectured
and presented her work

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to Muslim students
in the Kerala state

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as an ambassador to the
US State Department.

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Anne's poetry, like her strong
spirit and vibrant being,

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has always and foremost
engaged with the world

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with a generosity and open
heartedness I have infrequently

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encountered in people or poetry.

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It is with this generosity
and fearlessness

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that Anne has entered
the world and continues

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to enter the world, again and
again, to speak the truth,

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to fight for others,
too praise, to shock,

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to cross and break
down boundaries,

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to think, to love,
to mourn, to sing,

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and to live well,
creating community

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with her fellow artists.

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I am sure she will
continue to do this

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until the end of
what we may call time

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in our own personal perception.

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Her poetry will
always sing itself.

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We will always hear
her voice in our ears

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upholding her deeply
ethical vision of our world

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and affecting the change
necessary to create

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that world again and again.

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And is that not one
true purpose of poetry?

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Please help me to
welcome Anne Waldman.

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[APPLUASE]

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