A conversation with folk legend Joan Baez

Diane Rehm: On My Mind

For years, legendary folk singer Joan Baez wrote poems and tucked them away in notebooks and on scraps of paper. She started this decades ago, around the time memories surfaced of childhood abuse at the hands of her father.

Baez says poetry was a way to explore the reasons behind her lifelong phobias, insomnia and panic attacks – and to come to terms with a diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder, which for her meant she lived with several other voices in her head.

Now 83, Baez has taken these musings about her life, her trauma, and her passions for nature and art, and is sharing them with the world.

“When You See My Mother, Ask Her to Dance” reads like a diary in verse, and offers deep insight into the experiences and creativity of one of our nation’s most beloved folk musicians.

Diane spoke to Joan Baez on Zoom in front of a live audience as part of The Diane Rehm `Book Club in August of this year. They talked about the book, as well as the recent documentary about Baez’s life, “Joan Baez: I Am a Noise.”

Find out more about The Diane Rehm Book Club here: dianerehm.org/bookclub