Press Releases

  New Anthology, Beats at Naropa, Chronicles Kerouac School and its Personalities

BOULDER, Colo. (July 7, 2009)—Naropa University is proud to announce the
publication of “Beats at Naropa” (Coffee House Press, 2009), an anthology of neverbefore-
collected essays, talks and interviews with some of the most intriguing and
important figures of Beat literature.

“Beats at Naropa” features accounts from and/or about writers who currently teach, or
have taught, at Naropa’s renowned Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics. The list
of literary luminaries includes: Allen Ginsberg (Howl and Other Poems), Anne Waldman
(Fast Speaking Woman), William S. Burroughs (Naked Lunch), Diane di Prima
(Revolutionary Letters), Amiri Baraka (Transbluesency), Gary Snyder (Turtle Island) and
others.

The anthology also provides unique insight and historical perspective into the artists who
have passed through Naropa and the Kerouac School. Naropa has maintained an
extensive collection of audio archives through the years, and Waldman along with “Beats
at Naropa” co-editor Laura Wright drew on the archived oral history to pull together this
cohesive collection. Waldman calls the anthology "a cultural intervention."

She also recalls in the book’s introduction how Naropa’s founder, Chogyam Trungpa,
Rinpoche, invited her along with Ginsberg and di Prima to attend a 1974 summer festival
in Boulder.

“Among us, we felt a commonality of spirit, a spirit that morphed into a chrysalis from
which emerged the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics,” writes Waldman.
The emerging “butterfly,” the Kerouac School, celebrates its 35th birthday this year.
Naropa has carried the original 1974 spirit into the present through its year-round Writing
and Poetics Department, along with its annual Summer Writing Program. Waldman
recently noted that Trungpa originally envisioned a 100-year project, and said that in
2009, reaching the 100-year mark “doesn’t seem so far off.”

Waldman and Summer Writing Program co-director Lisa Birman are engaged in passing
along a lineage known as “Outrider Poetics.” Outrider poetics is known for a number of
experimental characteristics, such as the use of risk, surprise, urgency, investigation,
political activism, candor and hybrid form, or being (in Waldman’s words) “a shadow to
the mainstream.”

“Historically, the Beats pushed beyond the mainstream, they changed the direction of
U.S. literature and had a great impact on American culture,” said Birman. “Naropa
University is not trying to train the next generation of Kerouacs, but we align with their
vision of pushing the border, in the tradition of Outrider poetics.”
As the Beat writers were known for creating wildly experimental and innovative works of
art, “Beats at Naropa” gives readers a chance to better understand the equally
experimental and innovative thought processes at play inside the Kerouac School.
Clay Evans, a writer and former editor for the Boulder Daily Camera, wrote in a June 23
review of “Beats at Naropa” that the personalities were revealed as “cranky, odd, brilliant
and fascinating.”

Evans singled out a passage from “Frightened Chrysanthemums: Poets’ Colloquium,”
featuring Burroughs, Ginsberg, Trungpa, Waldman and five other participants. The
panelists discussed diverse topics such as astral projection, the literature of occultism,
wiping out past mental conditioning, devotion and beauty, the intricacies and challenges
of the creative process, and more.

“The conversation goes on for almost 30 pages, and it’s anything but boring, magically
revealing the personalities in the room,” wrote Evans. And at more than 225 pages, “Beats at Naropa” readers will gain a new appreciation for a group of artists and visionaries who created an historic and lasting imprint on the culture at large.

Accredited by the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of
Colleges and Schools, Naropa University is a private, nonprofit, nonsectarian liberal arts
institution dedicated to advancing contemplative education. This approach to learning
integrates the best of Eastern and Western educational traditions, helping students know
themselves more deeply and engage constructively with others. The university comprises
a four-year undergraduate college and graduate programs in the arts, education,
environmental leadership, psychology and religious studies.
_________
Naropa will hold a book signing for “Beats at Naropa” on Sunday, July 12 at 2:30 p.m. in
the Boulder Book Store, 1107 Pearl Street, Boulder, Colo. Waldman and Wright, who is
a Naropa writing school graduate, will be on hand along with Coffee House Press
publisher Allan Kornblum, and long-time faculty member Steven Taylor who was Allen
Ginsberg's musical accompanist for more than twenty years. The event will include live readings
from “Beats at Naropa” and time for discussion. For more information, please email
jkazimer@naropa.edu, call 303-245-4665 or go to
http://www.naropa.edu/swp/beatsatnaropa.cfm.