Cross Worlds: Transcultural Poetics: An Anthology

by Anne Waldman (Editor), Laura Wright (Editor)

Overview

Cross Words refers to cultural hybrids, trans-cultural alliances, and associations. This fascinating compendium documents—in essays, conversations, and socratic raps—the vital work poets perform when they write across borders.

Anne Waldman is the author of more than forty collections of poetry, the editor of numerous anthologies, and, for The Iovis Trilogy, the winner of the Shelley Memorial Award and the USA PEN Center Award for Poetry. She is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.

Laura Wright is a poet, translator, and librarian. With Anne Waldman, she co-edited Beats at Naropa (Coffee House Press, 2009).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781566893589
Publisher:	Coffee House Press
Publication date:	07/15/2014
Pages:	366
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Anne Waldman, poet, professor, cultural activist, and co-founder, with Allen Ginsberg, of one of the most vital writing programs in the world—the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics—is the author of more than 40 collections of her own poetry and the editor of numerous anthologies including Nice to See You (Homage to Ted Berrigan), The Beat Book, and Civil Disobediences: Poetics and Politics in Action. She is the winner of the Shelley Memorial Award and the USA PEN Center Award for Poetry 2012 for her monumental feminist epic The Iovis Trilogy: Colors in the Mechanism of Concealment. She received a Guggenheim Fellowship 2013-14 and is a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.

Laura E. Wright is a poet, translator, and librarian; she has also worked as a classical musician and a volunteer firefighter/EMT. She has published various chapbooks and one full-length collection of poems, Part of the Design (Meeting Eyes Bindery, 2005). With Anne Waldman, she co-edited Beats at Naropa (Coffee House Press, 2009), a collection of talks given at Naropa University. Her translation (with Anselm Hollo) of Henri Michaux's La vie dans les plis (Life in the Folds) is in search of a home. From 1999-2006 she curated/co-curated (with Mark DuCharme and then Daron Mueller) the Left Hand Reading Series in Boulder. She was a co-editor, from 2001-2005, of Potato Clock Editions, the publishing arm of the School of Continuation. She also manages LitCal, a listserve/group that was started in 2000 by Kass Fleisher announcing literary events in the Front Range area.

Table of Contents

Introduction Anne Waldman Laura Wright 1

Wolf Song Transmissions Daniel Stardforth 4

Spontaneous Poetics: Australian Aboriginal Song Sticks Allen Ginsberg 6

Basil Bunting: An Introduction Tom Pickard 13

Infiltrating the Mass Media: Romania, 1989 Andrei Codrescu 28

Ploughing The Clouds Peter Lamborn Wilson 35

Border Zones: Other Paradigms of Language Wang Ping Christian Ide Hintze Elsa Cross Ilya Kutik Lyn Hejinian 58

Parallel Verse, Translation, The Popol VUH Dennis Tedlock 66

Hidden Female Shamanic Traditions Barbara Tedlock 76

Nothing I Withhold: A Socratic Rap Cid Corman 90

Talking Back To Whitman Lorenzo Thomas 100

Geographic Distortions: Culture, Politics, and Diversity Victor Hernandez Cruz 115

Some Questions for Jerome Rothenberg Anne Waldman Laura Wright 119

Horizons of Expectation: Panel on Prose Translation Samuel R. Delany Karen Tei Yamashita Nina Zivancevic 123

Choralling Cultures Eileen Myles 156

Hip-Hop Culture Alexs Pate 144

Arabic Poetics & The International Literary Scene Pierre Joris 153

The Event of the Border Bhanu Kapil 169

Cultural Activism: Writing Under the New World Order Akilah Oliver Joanne Kyger Anne Waldman Eleni Sikelianos 173

Put Fire on this Crazy World: An Interview with Nicole Brossard Melissa Buizeo Anne Waldman Soma Feldmar 185

What Is The Light?: Reflections On Other Worlds Mónica de la Torre 207

The Deluge: Contemporary Vietnamese Poetry Linh Dinh 212

Love and Politics Judith Malina Hanon Reznikov 228

What's Poetry To You? Cecilia Vicuña 241

Telling Stories Samuel R. Delany Hoa Nguyen Meredith Quartermain James Thomas Stevens 247

Moving Across Languages, Borders, and Cultures Heriberto Yépez Myung Mi Kim C. S Giscombe Sherwin Bitsui 258

I Am Both. I Am Neither Michelle Naka Pierce 268

Poemaazu (Poemers) and Toranranranzureeshonzu (Translations) Sawako Nakayasu 271

Piercing The Walls Margaret Randall 276

Savoring Death In Mexico Alberto Ruy-Sánchez Rhonda Dahl Buchanan 288

About Today Bei Dao Perry Link 306

Great Divides and Common Ground Dolores Dorantes Jen Hofer 311

How to be an Eastern European Poet in Amerika Ana Boziccvic 315

The Question is How to Interrogate the Remains Eleni Sikelianos 319

Words Quotes, Questions, in and Around and All Over "the Field" Anselm Hollo 321

Po/Ethics Anne Waldman Daisy Zamora Jack Collom Hairyeitc Mullen David Henderson 332

Biographies 345

Editorial Reviews

“There are serious riches on hand in this latest marvel-filled gleaning from the Kerouac School’s indispensable yearly summertime transcultural poetic vortex. Equally attentive to the voices of those who have left us and those still around to "put fire on this crazy world," Editors Anne Waldman and Laura Wright have herein beautifully gathered a host of high-voltage talks, panels, interviews and razor-sharp asides whose collective brilliance out burns anything this side of the sun.” —Laird Hunt

“Filled with a variety of useful riches that traverse a dizzying array of languages, geographies, and political realities, Cross Worlds: Transcultural Poetics—like previous volumes Civil Disobediences and Beats at Naropa—continues to deliver the goods stored in the Archives of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics. We are in need, more than ever, of this kind of archival attention, as even our recent past gets consumed by the present. This ‘news that stays news’ moves from Allen Ginsberg on Aboriginal poetics to Vietnam, the Mayan classics, Puerto Rico, African America, and the need for gringos to encounter the world as seen through Arab and other eyes. Poetic thought here, the thought of poets, is provocative, critical, and necessary, a way of grasping the worlds we now live in and how they came to be.” —Ammiel Alcalay

“This wondrous, extraordinary collection reflects the facets and range of artists that interact with each other and fellow luminary Anne Waldman, evoking human interactions beyond our constructions of nations and states and prompting us to think about our connection to the planet itself and all its inhabitants. Contemplative, illuminating, unusual, and global, Cross Worlds is an excellent compilation of the confluence of global systems and renowned workers/players/ experimenters of language and culture. What’s also really wonderful in it are the many instances of these word masters in conversation with each other and the insights generated by their discourse. I appreciate what this book will continue to do for future decades, future books, future worlds.”—Tracie Morris

"This collection presents an excellent snapshot of contemporary international poetry."—Cultural Weekly

"A firm belief in poetry’s inherent transformative principle properties is pervasive throughout this collection. From continents to languages, there’s a diverse offering of perspective both historical and contemporary."—Jacket 2

From the Publisher