1st Thought, Best Thought and other Interview Gems

Anne Waldman

Anne Waldman

How does one communicate the essence of three decades of conducting interviews? I have had to do that, and quick, as a grant deadline is approaching and I save the worst of the grant writing process for last. I decided on a medley of some of the moments in those last 30 years that have had a huge influence on me, demonstrated some of the breadth and depth of the content of my interviews and were close by, so I did not have to orlistat india do much digging. Here are Soundcloud widgets of the medley and some of the associated parts, so one can see the context of some of the excerpts. As these interviews were all conducted between 1994 and 2011, you can get a sense, I think, of the prophetic nature of their subjects. Thom Hartmann, for instance, was a good five years ahead of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, which reaffirmed the notion of corporate personhood. Anne Waldman (with her poem Dark O’ Night) was about 13 years ahead of the legalization of same sex marriage in Washington, so it’s good to see that poets practicing Open Form or the Practice of Outside are tapping into something beyond themselves as Eileen Myles explains in her clip below. & what use is philosophy if it does not lead to action? The interviews these segments came from all had a huge influence on me. As always, your feedback is appreciated.

About Splabman

Poet & interviewer Paul E Nelson founded SPLAB (Seattle Poetics LAB) & the Cascadia Poetry Festival. Since 1993, SPLAB has produced hundreds of poetry events & 600 hours of interview programming with legendary poets & whole systems activists including Allen Ginsberg, Michael McClure, Joanne Kyger, Robin Blaser, Diane di Prima, Daphne Marlatt, Nate Mackey, George Bowering, Barry McKinnon, José Kozer, Brenda Hillman & many others. Paul’s books include American Prophets (interviews 1994-2012) (2018) American Sentences (2015) A Time Before Slaughter (2009) and Organic in Cascadia: A Sequence of Energies (2013). Co-Editor of Make It True: Poetry From Cascadia (2015), 56 Days of August: Poetry Postcards (2017) and Samthology: A Tribute to Sam Hamill (2019) Make it True meets Medusario (2019), he’s presented poetry/poetics in London, Brussels, Nanaimo, Qinghai & Beijing, China, has had work translated into Spanish, Chinese & Portuguese & writes an American Sentence every day. Awarded a residency at The Lake, from the Morris Graves Foundation in Loleta, CA, he’s published work in Golden Handcuffs Review, Zen Monster, Hambone, and elsewhere. Winner of the 2014 Robin Blaser Award from The Capilano Review, he is engaged in a 20 year bioregional cultural investigation of Cascadia and lives in Rainier Beach, in the Cascadia bioregion’s Cedar River watershed.
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2 Responses to 1st Thought, Best Thought and other Interview Gems

  1. Carol Blackbird Edson says:

    Paul- What a joyful collection of interview gems!
    Surely there are glorious poems waiting ahead of us down the street 😉
    BBird

  2. Splabman says:

    Thanks Carol. Thanks for popping in to the Ale House for my last reading. Yes, the poem you speak of has arrived! http://paulenelson.com/2013/02/24/juan-vicente-de-guemes/

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