Quotes from Anne Waldman

I get worked up over an 'idea' or the ethos of an idea. I follow dreams, take notes on travels, and engage in research often - if I need names, details, facts that enhance the project.

We have a motto at Naropa: 'Keep the world safe for poetry.' It's humorous but has some real bite to it. If the world is safe for poetry, it can be safe for many other things.

I still had to correct Allen Ginsberg at times when he called women girls. I'd say. Allen please, it's not politically correct.

The challenge lies in the fact that the planet has limited time. Be it climate change or nuclear fallout, there is very little time. You have to pick your cause.

As a woman I have felt encouraged and fed by and nurtured by the work of [Jack] Kerouac and others.

I think of the amazing things that were going on. So it's so rich. The doors keep opening.

You really felt a radical shift in the advance of a poetics that had really been engendered by [Walt] Whitman. This was very exciting. I wanted to work in this environment.

I call what I do 'modal structures.' Sometimes they're songs, sometimes they're longer, sometimes they're this mantra - I've never called myself a spoken word poet.

I think of my father born in this very small, limited situation and then coming out of that. Many people have this story.

The sense of traveling this continent, also other continents. The friendship.I would say a non-competitive friendship. That is so amazing to me.