Gossamurmur by Anne Waldman

Gossamurmur by Anne Waldman

Acclaimed for her visionary, incantatory verse and her experimental ethos, Anne Waldman's newest book-length poem is an allegory of a radical spirit in lockdown, dominated by "Deciders" and "Imposters" who threaten the future of poetry and its archive. A doppelganger nightmare ensues: the imposter "Anne" is a succubus, and the original Anne has to break free from a metaphorical castle of torture and psychological domination. There are travels through Vedic cosmology and ancient Japan before resolution on a treeless tundra, where fragile life forms struggle to survive. Waldman's oracular poem is a witty meditation on identity theft and a searing plea for the primacy of imagination and for collective sanity in our provocative yet precarious time.

Anne Waldman is a poet, lecturer, performer, and cultural activist who has published over 40 books of poetry and poetics, the most recent of which is Manatee/Humanity, as well as the anthology Beats at Naropa, which she co-edited with Laura Wright. She's spoken at conferences and festivals in Beijing, Berlin, Vienna, Nicaragua, and Prague, and she's taught practicums at the Zen Mountain Monastery and Naropa University recently. For a number of video/movie productions, she collaborates with writer/director Ed Bowes.