No school has a closer connection to the Beats than Naropa University. So it’s no surprise that Naropa’s archives are a treasure trove complete with audio files of “actual teachings and conversations, interviews, panels and essays that were presented at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics here in Boulder,” says Naropa’s Anne Waldman. She and co-editor Laura Wright transcribed and edited selections from these files, and the result is the brand-new Beats at Naropa anthology, which puts on paper conversations with the likes of William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, John Clellon Holmes, Diane di Prima, Philip Whalen and others.

“I think it’s very inviting and welcoming,” Waldman explains. “It’s not a critical theory book. It’s the living practitioners and figures of this movement really teaching us, and that’s the nice thing. You feel that it’s a live conversation. The idea was to keep the liveliness of the dynamics of the conversation going.”

Stop by the Boulder Book Store, 1107 Pearl Street in Boulder, today at 2:30 p.m. for a free Beats at Naropa signing, which will include a video clip and discussion by Waldman, Wright and Coffee House publisher Allan Kornblum. For more information, visit www.boulderbookstore.com or call 303-447-1252.
Sun., July 12, 2:30 p.m., 2009