Celebrated poet, professor and activist Anne Waldman will be at Carthage on Nov. 18 to lead a discussion on poetry and activism, and give a performance of her poems.

Ms. Waldman is the co-founder, with Allen Ginsberg, of The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University in Boulder, Colo. She currently serves as artistic director of its Summer Writing Program. She is the author of more than 40 acclaimed books of poetry, including Fast Speaking Woman and Other Chants (City Lights, 1975), Marriage: A Sentence (Penguin Poets, 2000), and the Iovis project (Coffee House Press, 1992, 1993, 1997). In 1976, she and Ginsberg were featured in Bob Dylan's experimental film Renaldo and Clara.

4 p.m. — The Poetics of Activism

At 4 p.m. Thursday, Ms. Waldman will host a discussion on "The Poetics of Activism" in the Niemann Media Theatre. Ms. Waldman has worked actively for social change, and has been involved with the Rocky Flats Truth Force. In the 1970s, she was arrested with Daniel Ellsberg and Allen Ginsberg protesting the site of Rocky Flats, which was bringing plutonium onto property 10 miles from Boulder for the manufacture of "triggers" for nuclear warheads. She has been involved with clean-up issues; Poets Against the War, organizing protests in New York and Washington, D.C.; and the Poetry is News events, co-curated with poet and translator Ammiel Alcalay.

7 p.m. — Poetry Reading/Performance

Ms. Waldman will read her poetry at 7 p.m. Thursday in the Niemann Media Theatre. A famously compelling performer of her poems, Ms. Waldman's books and chapbooks include Skin Meat Bones, Kill or Cure, Helping the Dreamer, and In the Room of Never Grieve. Her book Fast Speaking Woman has been translated into Italian, Czech, French and Spanish. Her play Red Noir played two and a half months on off-off-Broadway in New York City in 2009-10, and was enthusiastically reviewed by the New York Times.

The event is sponsored by the Visiting Writers Series, the Office of the Provost, the Division of Humanities, and the English Department. For more information, please contact Richard Meier, writer-in-residence at Carthage, at (262) 551-5937 or rmeier@carthage.edu.