Product Description

Anne Waldman takes the opportunity with this twentieth-anniversary expanded edition to add twenty poems to this collection that brings into focus her lifelong engagement with "Chant" as central to contemporary performative poetry.

Here are spells, invocations, laments, ritual rants. Archaic beliefs in magic and ecstasy meet current notions of the power of the spoken word. Waldman writes, ""The poem is a textured energy field or modal structure. The poems for performance seem to manifest as psychological states of mind. They come together in a mental, verbal, physical, and emotional form, making their particular demands on my voice and body. I am the 'energumen.' The poem is the experience."" Also included in this book are three essays on the oral tradition in poetry. One essay discusses the history and occasion of the title poem. The others treat such topics as performance art and poetic tradition, ethnopoetics, intoxication and transformation, Tibetan Buddhism, and the renewed ascendency of feminine energy in writing. Anne Waldman, world renowned for her high-energy poetry performances, is the author of over thirty books and chapbooks of poetry. She is the co-founder and director of The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #629014 in Books
• Published on: 2001-01-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 159 pages

Amazon.com Review
This expanded edition of Anne Waldman's poems and essays adds 20 poems and three essays to the original. Published in City Lights' Pocket Poets series, the collection is the perfect size to carry in a pocket or purse. The poems, however, are powerhouses meant to be read aloud. Waldman reigns as queen of the performance poem; in this book she focuses on the chant and the ritual rant. She's "here to sing the power," and, believe me, you can feel it.

From Library Journal
This 20th-anniversary reprint contains all of the poems published in the author's previous 1975 and 1978 editions plus 20 new poems and three essays on the history of the title piece and poetic tradition (LJ 9/15/75).
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
& Sleep, The Lazy Owl Of Night
After Mirabai
Anarchy Reggae
Bardo Corridor
Battery
Battle Beast
Billy Work Peyote
A Book Of Events
Crack In The World
Empty Speech
Fast Speaking Woman
Fast Speaking Woman & The Dakini Principle
Guardian & Scribe
Gypsy Nun
Hag's Heart
I Bow At Bodhgaya
I Guard The Woods
Invocation
Lady Tactics
Lament You Are In This Mind Of
Light & Shadow
Lines To A Celebrated Friend
Millennium Sutra
Musical Garden
Notorious
The Nun Abutsu
Pratitya Samutpada
Pressure
Queer Heart
Red Hat Lama
Spel Against Specious Ones
Spel Against Specious Ones
Talking Mushrooms
Verses For The New Amazing Grace
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

Chants and essays by Waldman are presented in an expanded, updated edition which adds twenty poems to a classic collection. The reprint of this 1975 classic in its new form promises to introduce new audiences to Waldman's famous work. -- Midwest Book Review

Customer Reviews

Present Day Icon, chant and philosophy has impact
Anne Waldman is a literary figure that feeds off of her own inborn energy. Energy is what you think of when you think of chants. Having been raised in a tradition of chants, i find her Fast Speaking Woman Chant extremely moving. She seeks to represent all but also exhault all individuality. The book is a nice compact perfect bound book. Easily transported in your medical coat, or business pocket.

Fast Speaking Woman
"Fast Speaking Woman" is one of the best poems I've ever read, and it captures everything that the Beats attempted (and attempt) to capture in their stream of conciousness writing. She's defining herself, but she is also defining every other woman, because we can all do what she did. She is uplifting, and fabulous! The rest of the chants are awe inspiring, especially when chanted aloud so that you can get the full expereince. If you like Allen Ginsberg, et. all, you will love Waldman. She is a true Beat woman, who does not need to define herself through the men that she associates with.