Well now we're going to talk about Anne Waldman's Rouge State. Now really Anne Waldman should appear in next chapter of this course because she's thought of mostly as the second generation New York school poet. But we're, she had a very very close relationship with Allen Ginsberg. They became friends and collaborators and at a certain point Allen Ginsberg turned toward chanting, Blakeian and Wordsworthian ballads and in a way this is what Rogue State does. So in that mode, Ginsberg was not performing along lines, he was actually doing ballads. And this, as I say, influenced Walden and so she sought a kind of bardic, performative role as what she called an Outrider and this is a good instance of that. So, what's a rogue state? There are two definitions probably happening here. What's the political definition the we know, Dave? >> A state that stopped following the rules. >> Okay, it's actually a phrase that gets used in politics. What does it refer to? >> A rogue state that they stop following. I don't understand. >> Well, give me an instance of a rogue state. >> Like one of the Soviet republics or former Soviet republics breaking off and not following. >> Okay, a rogue state would be something like North Korea, or Libia, that would be a rogue state, maybe Iran. Okay, so a rogue state is a pariah state. Okay, what else does rogue state refer to? >> Be in a physical state of being- >> Or emotional state. >> Sure, of being kind of rogue, as in going a little crazy, going out there like a rogue agent. Could be a CIA agent who's suddenly decided- >> So she's in a rogue state? >> Of being. >> Of being, okay, good. And how does that manifest itself in a poem that Anne Waldman is in rogue state? What is she doing, what does she want? Ann Maurice? >> Well, her voice is sort of like a phantom, sort of harpy-esque, and seems sort of inhuman at times. >> That's a harridan. She calls herself a harridan. >> Is it a woman who scolds excessively? >> Yes. A bossy, strident, belligerent woman. This is quite an interesting position to sort of embrace, right? And what is she doing with that personality? Max? >> She's, I mean it's a very political poem. >> Yes. >> She's railing against all the sort of villains of the Bush Era including John Ashcroft. >> Mm hm. >> And then not just- >> Who is John Ashcroft? >> He was. >> Lest we forget. >> Attorney General for George W Bush. He famously covered up the statues on the Justice Department, right? The some, semi-nude statues. He's a very prudish kind of censoring guy. >> And what would Anne Waldman have to say to him? >> Well, she would tell him that she's in a rogue state. >> [LAUGH] She also describes herself as the lady of misrule. So, does anyone want to describe what the lord of misrule was or is? Who wants to take a crack at that? Ally, go ahead. You can do it. >> [LAUGH] I think, is it French tradition? >> I think in English as well. >> All right. The kind of arbiter of the day of misrule. I mean, I guess the word thats- >> When a commoner gets chosen and everything gets turned upside down. >> So when the kind of normal set of rules are no longer operative. That person is the presiding judge, perhaps? >> So I'm in a rogue state bushy. She's referring to George W Bush. Don't tell me what to do. Your rules aren't my rules. because I'm the lady of misrule. How does she sing that by the way? She chants this. Molly, do you remember? >> I mean, it's very sort of throaty and sort of quavering. She's very primal. >> It's bluesy. It follows some sort of bluesy but pentatonic melody kind of going up and down. >> Mm-hm, and she talks about how she's going to inter-gated communities. What kind of, how can you generalize about this and? >> She just kind of seems like, especially listening to her and then if you watch the video of another one of her performances. She kind of just seems like this ghoul woman who is just going to kind of just rogue state all over you. >> But is it, even though you were smiling when you said that you were describing it as if it's deadly serious. >> But I- >> It's not is it? >> But it's not at all and I don't think she treats as if, it's as if she's kind of making fun of her own rogue state. I don't know. >> Absolutely, yeah. Max? >> I think there's certainly a kind of, an interesting, maybe even problematic racial element to this. To say, I mean, we think when we think of gated communities we can't help but think of these sort of exclusive, typically white neighborhoods that are gated in order to keep out the rest of the urban population. So typically, African-Americans or other ethnic minorities. And even this bluesy warbling almost Nina Simone way of singing, she's assuming or propagating this sort of black femininity, and it's sort of threatening people. >> Even so she describes her role generally as an Outrider in the poetry world. Although she's been closely affiliated with through the friendship with Ginsberg with the beat generation and the New York school. She thinks of herself as an Outrider. This is a role of the poet that we need to talk about for a few minutes. What's the role of the poet here? All right, what kind of poet? >> Truth to power. >> Speaking truth to power, yes, keep going. >> It's quite different than Wilbur's role of the poet. >> Yeah. What's the difference between Wilbur's role, he actually has a role, he calls it my office in that poem, my office is to? >> To be the nice genteel poet who's going to write about nice things. >> Well, to make it possible for a different kind of lady of misrule in the making to lead us to a somewhat cheerful life. Okay, so the role of the poet per Anne Waldman? >> Not that. [LAUGH] >> Not that. [LAUGH] Say more? >> Maybe to kind of come and ruffle things up. And kind of create a type of chaos. Or misrule in the face of how things are- >> And for this poem we don't have a text, we're not making a text available. This is only known for our purposes instructionally through performance, that's new. That's new. >> Well that, I think, contributes- >> I mean even Kerouac, sorry, even Kerouac, Babble Flow, I read it. We don't have a recording of Jack, he wrote that. Here we have a performance of a Blakeian ballad in the Ginsbergian way, with a female poet with antic energy, bardic, spiritual. So, say more. >> Well I was going to kind of talk about her use of rhyme. I mean, when we talked about the Communist poets using the ballad form- >> Right. >> As kind of maybe a way for remembrance or a way to kind of talk about something difficult in a form that's familiar. >> Right. >> I think she's using the form here. One because it's performance, and maybe that makes it easier for her remember if you have certain things rhyme. As I was listening I was sort of felt like it was kind of a, b, c, b run more or less. And the other kind of interesting thing about that is that she's talking about how she's in a rogue state and she's the lady of misrule, and yet it's in a fairly traditional form. I think that's very interesting. >> Well, expect that in this case, she's borrowing from Ginsberg the notion that one can perform the role of the public and using Blake as a model, which is another guy of misrule, try to explode that through performance. And let's talk about performativity here, all right? So, what's important and powerful about the poet performing? This too, gotten not just from Ginsberg, but from the mode of the Beat generation. Moving out of, publish your poem in a magazine, then publish it in a book, then hope that the prizes come in, and then be, you know? The Beats were more or less the beginning of the idea that you performed you poetry in order to try it out on your colleagues. This is certainly how Howl was presented to the poetry world. So, let's talk about performance and the importance of it. Dave? >> Just like form can communicate something of substance, so can the performance. And this performance I found difficult to listen to. And I think that was the point because it's a protest poem and she's saying things that the people in power should find difficult to listen to as well. >> Mm-hm, Emily. >> I think Dave said it pretty well. I guess something about what Allie said about it seeming ghoul-ish, it struck me as a taunt and I think in the video you see that she's sort of like waves her fingers in this spooky way. It may not be serious in its semantic meaning, but it is a serious provocation. >> It seems to me in line with in Howl, when Ginsberg is talking about the beats weeping and crying, and doing all sorts of shocking things, and handing out nonsensical literatures or these Dada acts. This is a poem that's sort of shocking in its performance but it can be performed anywhere. You can go down to Union Square and you can pick up right where the beat's left off and just start sort of warbling this and singing this. >> It's an intervention, I guess is a word I would say. And what it winds up doing is create a kind of basic analogy that the beats were very good at. Which is how I feel personally can be analogized to the state of the politics. So Ginsberg in a poem that we're not talking about, we're not looking at, America, talks about how he is America. And so whatever's going on in him needs to be applied to the society as a whole. And so she says, I'm in a rogue state. I'm basically North Korea, so boy am I annoying? >> She's not Sarah Palin. >> No, it's a different sense of rogue, going rogue. She's really going rogue here. So she's likening, and this is a feminist poem in this sense, that she's likening the role of the harridan, the spiritual bardic performance artist collaborator teacher activist harridan, the witch, who's out there like a rogue state, but within. It's like the domestic version of the rogue state. And so she's being very radical not by just delivering certain radical slogans or ideas about national and international politics. But she's saying, I am here bodily to represent the thing that will put all of this into check. So if the question is what can you do to stave off the darkness, right? For Creeley in that terrific poem it's about talking, for Anne Waldman it's about singing provocatively and performing and kind of being in your face.