Alison Hedge Coke
Reynolds Endowed Chair, 308.865.8672
UNK – Anne Waldman, an internationally recognized poet, performer and cofounder of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University in Boulder, Colo., will open the University of Nebraska at Kearney Reynolds Series on Wednesday, Sept. 9.
An active member of the “Outrider” experimental poetry community for more than four decades, Waldman will read from her works beginning at 7 p.m. in the UNK Experimental Theatre, which is located on the lower level of the Fine Arts Building. An autograph session and reception will take place after the reading. The presentation is free and open to the public.
The author of more than 40 books of poetry, including “Kill or Cure,” “Marriage: A Sentence” and “Fast Speaking Woman,” Waldman has appeared on stages around the world, including Berlin, Beijing, Rome, Quebec, Luxembourg, Prague, Vienna, London, Caracas and Mumbai. In addition, she helped organize poetry programs in Austria and Indonesia. Her most recent book, “Manatee/Humanity,” was released by Penguin Poets earlier this year.
Waldman has received numerous awards and honors for her poetry, including the Dylan Thomas Memorial Award, Poets Foundation Award, National Literary Anthology Award and Shelley Memorial Award for Poetry. She has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts, among others. Further, she is a two-time winner of the International Poetry Championship Bout in Taos, N.M.
After earning a B.A. from Bennington College in 1966, she ran the St. Mark’s Poetry Project through 1978, reading with fellow poets such as Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso. It was immediately after leaving St. Mark’s that she and Ginsberg founded the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University. Currently, Waldman is the director of the M.F.A. Writing and Poetics program at the Naropa Institute. She divides her time between Boulder, Colo., and Greenwich Village in New York City.
Ken Tucker of the “New York Times” has described Waldman as, “…the fastest, wittiest woman to run with the wolves in some time.”
Upcoming presenters in the Reynolds Series are Jan Beatty, Sept. 18; Sam Hamill, Oct. 6; and the Reynolds Scholars Reading, Oct. 9.
For more information, contact Allison Hedge Coke, endowed Paul and Clarice Reynolds Chair of Poetry and Writing, at (308) 865-8672.
