WAKE-UP CALL OF A POET - ANNE WALDMANLDMAN

Beat poet and activist
Broadcast date: Sunday 27-12-2009 12:00 - 12:30 ned. 2
Repeat: Saterday 2-1-2010 09:20 - 09:50 ned. 2
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Anne Waldman is a poet and an activist, known as “Fast speaking Woman”. She is one generation younger than Beat poets such as Michael McClure or Allen Ginsberg; although the latter called her his ‘spiritual wife’. Waldman was born and raised in New York. We watch her perform at the Bowery Poetry Club, during the St Mark’s Poetry Project, which she initiated, and during rehearsals for the play by The Living Theatre, directed by Judith Malina.

She visits the Shambhala Center which was once headed by her teacher Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche with whom she also worked at the Naropa University in Colorado. She guides us through an exhibition on Mandalas in The Rubin Museum of Art. Her Buddhist background manifests in all her work. Her latest compilation Manatee/Humanity features the manatee, an endangered species. Waldman feels it’s critical to deal with environmental issues and her work can be viewed as activist poetry.

Director/camera/ editor: Alexander Oey
With: Anne Waldman, Judith Malina, Pat Steir
Commissioning editor: Babeth M. VanLoo
Sound: Benny Jansen
With gratitude to: Judith Malina, Shambhala Center, Rubin Museum New York