Anne Waldman

“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.”

“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.”

“Trump is the worst. I mean, he is like a shape shifter. You can't nail him down. It is like the last gasp, the last bastion of old white males, of white supremacy and hegemony.”

“I want the poem to be an experience - for both the listener and for myself.”

“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.”

“When I attended the Berkeley Poetry Conference in 1965, I was very inspired. The collaboration of many poets from these alternative traditions - though there were not enough women - who were very much more influenced by, say, Asian forms or by Mantra or by thinking politically through their work in deeper ways really stuck with me.”

“I know when I go to a poetry reading, I feel purged, exulted. You let the poet guide you through some kind of journey.”

“We will have a total chaos without books, literature, and library.”

“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.”