Beats at Naropa

An Anthology edited by Anne Waldman and Laura Wright
2009 • 234 pages • ISBN: 978-1-56689-227-8 • $15.95
Essays, Talks, Interviews
Coffee House Press

2010 Colorado Book Award Finalist, Anthology category

Never-before-collected essays, talks, and interviews with the luminaries of Beat literature.

Amassed from the riches of the Naropa University audio archives, this collection offers an exciting new look at the Beats—whose influence lives on in the art and politics of our time. In this often spontaneous, conversational book, readers are introduced to the hard truths behind being a Beat woman, the haunting accuracy of William Burroughs’s world-view, the passion and energy of Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman, Jack Kerouac’s unexpected musicality, Diane DiPrima’s foray into small press publishing, Michael McClure’s account of the famous first reading of “Howl,” and, most of all, the inspirations behind America’s most provocative and prescient thinkers.

Contributors include:
Amiri Baraka
Lorna Dee Cervantes
Clark Coolidge
Diane di Prima
David Henderson
Joanne Kyger
Marjorie Perloff
Gary Snyder
Philip Whalen
William S. Burroughs
Ann Charters
Gregory Corso
Allen Ginsberg
Hettie Jones
Michael McClure
Edward Sanders
Janine Pommy Vega
and many more…

Reviews:

“At Naropa University’s Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, there has long been an illuminating, dynamic, ongoing exchange of ideas about the history and legacy of the Beat Generation—an exchange fortunately that has been carefully archived and preserved. This valuable anthology does not further embalm the ‘legend’ of the Beats. Instead it allows its readers to hear authentic voices—Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, John Clellon Holmes, Diane di Prima, Philip Whalen, etc.—as well as introducing the thoughtful and responsible work of leading Beat scholars.”
—Joyce Johnson