“The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado was founded by poet Waldman and Allen Ginsberg in 1974; it functions as a non-academic pedagogical laboratory (Waldman prefers Hakim Bey’s phrase, “temporary autonomous zone”) for synthesizing the energies loosed by the Beats, the poets of the Black Mountain School and other proponents of the literary counterculture, both ancient and modern. Its many teachers over the years have included Ted Berrigan, Robert Creeley, Joanne Kyger, Alice Notley and Michael Ondaatje, all of whom are represented in this culling of 40 presentations and colloquia from the school’s famous Summer Writing Program. With a conscious nod toward Thoreau, Waldman in her introduction attempts to articulate a varied poetics of engagement for our time. The various essays, lectures and teaching materials are divided into six sections (including Ancestral Presences, Dharma Poetics, Revolutionary Poetics, and Gnosis & Aesthetics) and cover a wide range of subjects (including gender, the environment and Buddhism) in ways that are refreshingly theory-free and conversational (many of the pieces were first presented as talks), while remaining erudite and informative. Highlights include a transcription of Ted Berrigan’s motormouth advice on “how to be a poet” from a workshop class in 1978, Peter Warshall’s presentation of the findings of the Maniacal Naturalist Society on the subject of “together living” or symbiosis, and James Grauerholz’s essay on William Burroughs and Zen. Taken as a whole, these various texts reaffirm the intersection of poetry and politics as a point where word and action can fuse powerfully.”
—Publisher’s Weekly

“A valuable and inspiring collection that explores the cross sections of culture and politics and the art of dissent.”
—David Barsamian

“Here, finally, is a book I can teach year after year without fear of its becoming dated. The intense pursuit and practice of poetry at Naropa University is astonishingly fresh and alive in this collection by the crème-de-la-crème of the avant-garde. Students, poets, and, for that matter, anybody interested in ideas can spend a useful eon dreaming herein.”
—Andrei Codrescu

“This is a book one can feast on, an exciting collection of poetry, ponderings, interviews, reminiscences, by a brilliant assemblage, including Allen Ginsberg, Michael Ondaatje, Amiri Baraka. The extraordinary piece by Sonia Sanchez and Ed Sander’s ‘A Tribute to Sappho’ are alone worth the price of admission.”
—Howard Zinn

“Here is the true Department of Peace. Intellectual thought and devotion to poetry as activist goodwill. Prayers for the warmongers.”
—Thurston Moore