Joan Baez Used Her Voice for Political Activism. Now She’s Adding a Brand-New Chapter to Her Legacy

A formidable voice since her days in the ’60s-era folk and protest movements, Joan Baez has embarked on a new journey of introspection. Her autobiographical debut poetry collection, When You See My Mother, Ask Her to Dance, is out later this month from Godine and chronicles her life and rise to fame, from grappling with the trappings of celebrity to navigating the relationships she built along the way, whether with her contemporaries, family, or Bob Dylan.

Though the Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter has been writing for years, the 120-page collection marks the first time she’s sharing her poetry publicly, the culmination of decades spent detailing her life.

“I put everything away until I was thinking of making this book,” she recently told Vanity Fair. “I had to go all over my house and property and office and storage unit to find bits and pieces of it, and that took a long time. And then I got very excited about it because I had forgotten the poems, and honestly, how good they are. So that spurred me on to finding somebody to work with and editing them down.”

The result of an American icon revisiting her archives and taking back her history is a brand-new chapter to a long-esteemed legacy. Baez recently spoke with Vanity Fair about her forthcoming release, Taylor Swift, and a life in activism.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Vanity Fair: You’ve been writing poetry for years, yet never shared anything publicly until now. Why?

Joan Baez: I can explain it, but it’s hard for people to understand. All this poetry was written during the same seven or eight years when I was in recovery from sexual abuse and et cetera. We don’t need to go into that. When I was doing that, I was diagnosed with multiple personalities. But honestly, the poems did the writing. I hadn’t written like that since the end of the ’90s. So I took all that writing, because it was the best writing that has ever come out of me and I spent a year editing it, just to make it more readable. It is the best poetry that I’ve ever written and I’m not sure I can write that way again. But in the meantime, I was thrilled to see stuff I had forgotten about and I loved the editing process, so I just went at it. The results are the book.

How has your relationship with your inherent creativity changed since you retired from touring in 2019?

It just exploded as soon as I quit touring. All of whatever was going into the music, from writing to traveling, took a turn. But when I got home it was mostly painting; I had a backlog of 10 years of painting that I never really started putting together in any kind of form and that’s when we did Mischief Makers, which were portraits of people who’ve made social change and promoted nonviolence, and that took up a lot of creative force and drive.

How do you decide what creative endeavour to choose day-to-day, whether it be writing, painting, or drawing?

I think it’s more that it comes and goes on its own time. For instance, my painting arrived out of nowhere. I was looking at someone’s gallery of paintings and thought, “Oh, I could do that.” On the tour bus, there was a little vanity table for you to do your makeup, and it was usually covered with paint and small canvases. And I just literally did that until I walked out on the stage. I did that fanatically for a number of years. Most of the stuff that shows up is a challenge, and when I accept it as a challenge I really love it.

There’s a poem about Bob Dylan in the book called “Portrait.” As we speak, the Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown, is being filmed and stars Timothée Chalamet, while the actor Monica Barbaro is playing you. What are your thoughts on the project, and have you had any contact with the production?

I reached out to them because I thought maybe I could be some help to her. I did speak with Ed [Norton, who stars as Pete Seeger], and with Monica. I feel as though she’s kind of innocent, like somebody dropped her there and she’s wondering what to do with it. She’s very sweet and we talked for quite a while. I tried to give her some tidbits that might be helpful, although I don’t envy the job of trying to play me. I’d think it’d be overwhelming. I’m not sure if they’re using a voice, or AI, or she sings but she’s very conscious of trying to learn the guitar, so they’re all trying to do that. I suggested that the jacket she’s wearing in one of the publicity shots was not mine, but it would have been Bob’s. I didn’t wear a little leather jacket. But maybe stuff like that could be useful.

Speaking of Dylan, you’re synonymous with the ’60s-era protest movement. I’ve heard you say in the past that you’re addicted to activism. Do you still harbor that addiction or do you have a healthy relationship with it?

That’s a good question, but it was a time period when I had to fill a void. It’s a pretty lovely way to fill it. I did what I felt I had to do, and I took pleasure in doing it, even if it was dangerous and weird. I felt comfortable there, and at some point, I should have been doing less. Like, why did I go off to Cambodia when my kid really needed me? So that’s the part of the addiction that’s not so great. But what was okay is that I was doing things sometimes that nobody else could do because of the nature of me and the singing and my activism. So in the end, even [my son] Gabe [Harris] says in the film that somebody had to do it, and it was his mom.

When You See My Mother, Ask Her to Dance has a diaristic feel. Taylor Swift also recently released a personal diary in the guise of an album, The Tortured Poets Department. Have you had a chance to listen to it?

I haven’t listened to it, but it certainly is on my list. I met her around seven years ago and she was just absolutely lovely and kind of surprised me with a big hug, and thanked me for what I meant to her. I was very surprised by that, to be at a concert with six tons of confetti. So I thought, If this young woman is relating to me, that’s pretty exceptional. She was very sweet and is a phenomena, and to be a phenomena with that many followers and to be that thoughtful is quite a feat.

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In regards to her song, “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?” Swift recently said, “What do we do to our writers, and our artists, and our creatives? We put them through hell. We watch what they create, then we judge it. We love to watch artists in pain, often to the point where I think sometimes as a society we provoke that pain and we just watch what happens.” Can you relate?

She’s in such a different category from me when it comes to the size of her fame. I can certainly understand what she’s saying and I have certainly felt judged a lot. But she sounds like she’s gone way more deeply into people’s reactions to her. I’d like to sit down and talk with her. She could probably teach me something, and vice versa.

What was it like for you when you were first coming up and contending with fame?

As you’re talking, it’s a really good question because that was my entire public battle with myself. I had my own inner demons which are all over the map and a lot of them are in the poetry. I was so determined not to be caught up in the world of entertainment and commercialism that it took a lot of energy. I avoided a lot of pitfalls that were right there for you to fall into as an entertainer and during early stardom. So I can partly relate to what she’s saying. For me, the rest was my own personal angst.

The book is dedicated to your granddaughter, Jasmine, and the future. How are you feeling about the future?

I’m feeling as though we are hustling towards the great abyss and I’m making the best of the time we have. I don’t talk about this in front of Jas. As far as she sees it at age 20, she’s been singing and songwriting but she decided she wants to do entertainment law. So I think there’s no reason to depress this child about what I really think we’re headed into because it is not good. It’s either Fascism or global warming that we’re going to succumb to, and way too sooner than I’d like to think. And I’m the darkest. I can get as dark as you can get about the future. So maybe somewhere between me and a cheerful optimist, it must be somewhere in the middle.