Anne Waldman: The Role of the Poet as an Activist

The “Outrider” tradition or practice in both poetics and politics presupposes a kind of parallel universe of mind-stream  (or imagination)and action to the “going” version of our  quotidian reality. I think that is the basic point. Nelson Mandela and his followers achieved this kind of powerful shift, breaking through  the paradigm of apartheid, just one example. Ghandi, another. So a consistency of vision. Many pacifist movements and many grassroots movements in my country – the USA - for many years, often forced below the radar- come to mind. And  the labor movement now somewhat eviscerated comes to mind. David Dellinger’s work as a pacifist, as well.

Civil rights, women’s right, gay rights movements that have been documented and studied are important to consider . Most non-violent movements have stuck with their principles.  And these principles  have been formulated, argued, written down, spoken.  It’ not as if we have to re-invent the wheel on social engagement and more socially compassionate forms of governance. And I have a lot of sympathy with the Dadaist Yippie (a group in the Sixties USA) agit prop activists during the Vietnam war, or the work of  the political women’s group Code Pink now. But the follow up and continuity is important. I see tribunals both for war crimes and for reconciliation as being key to so many situations and I support the tradition that works through these kinds of traumas. That the tragedy and injustices people suffer must be acknowledged, there has to be accountability. Reconciliation Australia has worked for acknowledging  its treatment of its Aboriginals who were not even counted in the census until the 1970s, just one example. It seems slow and painful and endless but the stories need telling and the individuals heard, on so many fronts.  All the “Disappeared” must be heard from. Social change can only happen when the people in the shadow interstices are participating and listened to and re-voiced.

Max Weber spoke of the “iron cage of bureaucracy” which is the curse of modernity but of course we are in the post-modern now, so are we in a different cage? The sinister global positioning machines in space, the hierarchical watchers from “above”, photographing us, listening into our cell phones, tapping our internet, scanning our eyes and going at a speed that doesn’t allow for the human, the bumbling, the shy, the frightened, those folk who are silenced for a number of reasons. Trapped in jails, and the like –or illegal places like Guantanamo.  So what are the tools – the upaya (skillful means)- for the political “outrider” alternative?  They are already in place and being used by many different kinds of individuals , all over the world in fact: communication, transparency, sharing of information.  We can’t organize any political demonstration without the speed of the internet & cell phone.  But there’s the plodding long term commitment and understanding the “Colors in the Mechanism of Concealment” ( a recent poem title that highlights Guantanamo).What is hidden? What is revealed? I continually ask. The nuclear arms resurgence and global warming are what we need to address most urgently. Toxic waste and the plastic islands forming in our seas. The difficulties that will ensue as people spill into 1st world countries from places of flood and famine and war.  Biblical proportions!  I was recently in Mumbai (India), the population is exploding, the slums of Daravi are so extreme…

The “version” of reality for the New American Century is imploding, the economics are falling apart,  it could reconstitute but there’s a tremendous opportunity for the citizens to bring it down further and re-imagine a more compassionate inter-connected world. The US is in hock to China, after all that “fear” of communist take-over most of my lifetime it’s ironic and darkly hilarious. And China, a great power and an extraordinary civilization - as we are seeing in the unfortunate situation in Tibet, needs our attention, communication and feedback. Burma (Myanmar) as well. “Polis” from which politics derives is “eyes” in American poet Charles Olson’s sense. It is  the duty of civitas, the body of citizens, to keep their eyes on, be watchful.  So what is the measure of that job currently?  There’s tremendous activity I think- pockets of activity, reclamation of radio and TV power grids… so many younger people getting involved in this next USA election cycle. The organic food revolution. There are huge shifts going on around race and identity. I am seeing a  potential for greater openness in the generation of my son Ambrose Bye and his friends.  So the alternative Outrider space is one that adheres consistently, one would hope,  and closely  in its values towards the general good of the poetic – meaning the language and the politic. And they are both at times highly vocal and at other times  specifically underground yet all the time riding along with, not giving up on – and in the role of a gadfly -  the “mainstream”, whatever that is. Just a “corporation” perhaps but still fluid.

There should there be a ‘spiritual architecture’ to social engagement, an outer form that matches an inner spiritual structure or capacity. This would be wise and salutary. Our social engagement has to match the kind of empathy that kindles within. The outer form could be a kind of tithing of our time to actually  further certain infra-structure goals. What is it you want to build in the “social”, for the civitas?  It has to be a collaboration. We had so little materially when Allen Ginsberg and I started The Jack Kerouac School at Naropa University in Boulder, Colordao 1974. We had the idea of a “hundred year project at least” and a core of human beings who wanted to create a new kind of educational mecca with a Buddhist backdrop and a non-competitive mandate who were willing to see it that way – a hundred years a least, beyond our own lifetimes.  I often suggest that younger poets/artists/activists/”dreamers”  - when they seem dissatisfied with the job prospects in schools and the like - start their own schools, their own  arts centers, media projects, physical plants and activity zones and they seem overwhelmed by that kind of long-term commitment and the sacrifice that involves. Without these Outrider places, the  juice dries up. The avant-garde  poetry realm is now living inside institutions – and we are glad there is a home and a space for serious  scholarly discourse and support and I am part of that realm myself, but I worry the notion of needing to be “credentialed”. Naropa is endangered perhaps by some of these same traps –more bureaucracy more standardization. We no longer run ads that say “Come study with people who have been jailed for their beliefs” as we once did  for The Kerouac School. Elite situations may often perpetuate the cage as radical ones get trapped inside  certain  economic lifestyles and expectations that come with privilege and  entitlement. But the Kerouac faculty has been exemplary – working for very little money many  years, holding it together.

Most of the world is not living as we in the USA do. And the task is huge, I think, especially for artist who are “spiritually motivated”. And we need to goad each other on to greater service for others. Practicing our art in this Dark Age is a luxury and a privilege. And it must be continued and in fact the teachings- the poetry and poetics themselves- the texts, the transmissions, the cultural artifacts, will have to be protected. There ARE enemies of individual artistic expression out there.  We might  have to practice underground at some point. Whole wisdom traditions, languages, cultures, practices are endangered – as well as living species– I am thinking of various Native American traditions and other.  And we should include these other traditions in our “survival kits.” I believe we need ALL these traditions to survive and live fully.

But cultivating the view carrying it in you as you live and breathe, that is what is needed. That you are always in your subconscious mumbling a mantra which is mind-protection and benefiting others. That all arising phenomena are to be appreciated, recognized, transmuted into “wisdom” and seen as plays of light and energy and sources of empathy.

Part of the problem might be the notion of samsara, which is the Sanskrit word for the “wheel of suffering” It’s hard to be working in  our worldly samsara all the time, to have a world so caught up in war, genocide(Darfur), famine and flood. To work with people who don’t see the illusory quality of our existence , who haven’t examined the Niddana chain, the skandas. Who are caught up in survival mode, caught  in hell realms,  hungry  ghost realms, warring god realms.  That’s where the public sub- conciousness might be caught- in those “cages”.  And I am in those mindsets as well, moment to moment, hungry, warring, impatient, speedy….So that’s the key. In Arthur Rimbaud’s sense, there‘s also the empathy of “I IS ANOTHER” however. Artists could train as mediators for work in Iraq, for  many troubled zones. And people are working in prisons and  with communities at risk – AIDS hospice and the like, as writers encouraging people to tell their own stories and memories. Students in our Kerouac School at Naropa University in Project Outreach have done this kind of work for years. I think a lot of people simply do not stay informed or are informed but don’t feel empowered to speak or organize, or are too busy with a certain kind of lifestyle. Again, we have to remember that most others are not living the way we are in our “comfort zones”.

There should be a whole cadre  - engaged, compassionate folk -  working within the United Nations.  Each country’s governments should have a volunteer Peace Team.. The poets organized benefits in New York and other places but it was never enough. We need to be part of the hotline.

There’s also the interesting activist/artist movement called ‘sousveillance.’  Besides having inherent meaning and value, sousveillance is an example (for me)of what I would a call social movement with  ‘spiritual architecture’ –meaning (in this case) that it emphasizes awareness, being mindful,recording the moment, being both participant and observer at the same time.  I always wanted to be an anthropologist or ethnographer. I think that’s the notion- field work. I consider myself a field poet. So  I think I’ve have  been involved with the activity and practice of “sousurveillance” all along and am delighted to have it now so brilliantly named and articulated by Steve Mann. This was necessary after 9/11 with the increased surveillance and harrassment on many individuals,racial profiling and the like and with the heightened rhetoric and “master narrative” of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

It’s the poets’ job, observing from within, from below, redefining relationships between the oppressor and the oppressed.  Allen Ginsberg practiced this, keeping endless files on the CIA narcotics trade in Southeast Asia and the like. I traveled and worked  with Allen and watched him investigating cab drivers, senators, power brokers of all kinds, rock and roll moghuls, punk rockers, observing every detail, notating every dream, every wrinkle in time, every fact on the doings and contradictions of the police state. Checking out their words. I watched him  endlessly clip articles from the NY Times  and interview the journalists who were presumably interviewing him.  So  some poets  may inherit - through this kind of lineage - the self-appointed job of watching the watchers. And watching one’s own mind as well. From within. It relates to the notion of “istorin”- the root – of “history”, to find out for oneself and the practice of Investigative Poetics

I’ve written about the Tree of Life meditation, and Blake wrote:  “Art is the tree of life.  Science is the tree of death.”  But this could be a false dichotomy that holds us back.

Poets are going to science by the droves.  It’s a magical vocabulary. You have to know the biology of this planet , its scientific hope and fear, its color schemes, where the cowslip dwells, the bee’s flight and fright, the long term sustaining job of the microbes.

We are eagerly awaiting a new Darwin, perhaps she who will  shed further light on our condition, the nature of our consciousness. Can it be measured by DNA?  Unlikely I think. I surmise Buddhism is already factoring into some of these conversations. Neutrinos are called the “Buddhist particles”. After spending some time with neuroscientists I found some of that conversation was invading my poetry. I had to look into science in thinking about the survival of the manatee (sea cow) or the lemur or the polar bear. One of my scientist friends has a manatee brain on his desk. The manatee’s brain has more grey matter than man’s. That’s a kind of rune. I contemplate this in my new book MANATEE/HUMANITY.