"I'm the woman travelling inside her head"
WALDMAN, Anne. Fast Speaking Woman. San Francisco: City Lights Books. 1975.
Small 4to. Cream covers with design by Joseph J. Krysiak; pink title lettering on front cover and featuring black and white photograph of a dancing woman by Sheyla Baykal; back cover with black and white photograph of the author by Rudy Burckhardt framed by a pink template; pp. [vi], 76, [2]; corner crease to top of back cover; minimal rubbing at rear and head of spine otherwise near fine; text block near fine.
First edition, first printing, number 33 in the legendary Pocket Poets Series.
"If I smashed the traditions it was because I knew no traditions. I was the girl with the unquenchable thirst" - Anne Waldman.
Anne Waldman was one of the leading directors of the famous Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church-in-the-Bowery in New York and a co-founder, alongside Diane Di Prima, of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University in 1974. This alternative university in Boulder, Colorado was the first to be inspired by Buddhism in the Western world.
Fast Speaking Woman is an example of Waldman's exploration of "chant" as integral to performance poetry and demonstrates the power of spoken word as a medium. Although shorter versions of the poem had been published previous to this edition, this is the first example of the fullest text.
As The New York Times would make known; "Waldman is one of the fastest, wisest women to run with the wolves in some time".
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