Iovis, Book I: All Is Full of Jove

Poetry by Anne Waldman

July 1993 • 7 x 10 • 256 pages • 978-1-56689-005-2

Anne Waldman, poet, editor, performer, wandering scholar and teacher, has travelled through the realms of art and politics, mythology and warfare, alert to the endless manifestations of male energy—the deeds of Jove. In the modernist heritage of the “poem that includes history,” she weaves an epic out of song, correspondence, cut-up documents and traditional verse forms. Guides, friends and patriarchs include Jack Kerouac, Robert Creeley, John Cage, her grandfather, father and son, old loves, each of whom she celebrates, harrangues, and argues with. For warfare and environmental degradation are the deeds of Jove as well, and she turns a cold eye and a feral tongue upon politicians and weapon dealers, the patriarchs that dominate the planet.

About the Author

Anne Waldman is an internationally renowned poet, performer, and Distinguished Professor of Poetics at Naropa University’s Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics. She is the co-editor of Civil Disobediences: Poetics and Politics in Action and the author of over forty books, including In the Room of Never Grieve and Vow to Poetry: Essays, Interviews, & Manifestos.

Reviews

“Iovis is monumental improvisation, epic length, major work by a major poet, Anne Waldman.” —Allen Ginsberg

“A marvelous mytho-poetic collage of self-and-other, male and female, in demonstration of a female universe (‘open system’) packed with seed. The Goddess considers the role and power of Jove in detail, in cosmic gossip and multiple languages. Anne Waldman’s vast new poem is a net of language and spirit that opens out the possibilities of writing and out enactment of archetypes in one long breath.” —Gary Snyder

“Iovis moves through time/space with specificity and force. A woman’s imagination of the male. An epic.” —Diane di Prima