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PHOTO GALLERY
Diane Di Prima is one of the
few female Beat writers to attain prominence and is certainly
a writer who is worth investigating.
She was born in New York City
on August 6, 1934 and after attending Swathmore College, settled
in Greenwich Village. It was at this location where she lived
the "bohemian lifestyle" that typified the Beat movement.
She published her first book
of poetry, a collection called This Kind of Bird Flies Backward
was published in 1958. In the early 1960's, she collaborated
with Amiri Baraka (LeRoi
Jones) and started a monthly periodical that featured the
work of themselves and many other notable Beats, including Jack Kerouac and William
S. Burroughs.
She also was the founder of two
publishing houses which focused on the writing of innovative
and avant-garde poets: The Poets Press and Eidolon Editions.
She also began a career as a lecturer at the Naropa Institute
in Colorado in 1974.
Di Prima's career may reflect
a struggle with the political and social upheavals that occurred
in the 1960's and 1970's however, her writing often focused on
her personal life and relationships. Much of her later writing
reflected an interest in alchemy, female archetypes and of course,
Eastern philosophies.
Some of her works include: Poems
for Freddie (1966), Earthsong Poems 1957 - 1959 (1968)
The Book of Hours (1970), Loba, Parts 1 - 8 (1978),
and Pieces of a Song (1990).
She also authored a collection of short fictional stories, Dinners
and Nightmares (1961) and an autobiographical book, Memoirs
of a Beatnik released in 1969.
The Window ( Top of Page
)
you are my bread
and the hairline noise
of my bones
you are almost
the sea
you are not stone
or molten sound
I think
you have no hands
this kind of bird flies backwards
and this love
breaks on a windowpane
where no light talks
this is not the time
for crossing tongues
(the sand here
never shifts)
I think
tomorrow
turned you with his toe
and you will
shine
and shine
unspent and underground
Chronology ( Top of Page
)
I loved you in October
when you hid behind your hair
and rode your shadow
in the corners of the house
and in November you invaded
filling the air
above my bed with dreams
cries for some kind of help
on my inner ear
in December I held your hands
one afternoon; the light failed
it came back on
in a dawn on the Scottish coast
you singing us ashore
now it is January, you are fading
into your double
jewels on his cape, your shadow on the snow,
you slide away on wind, the crystal air
carries your new songs in snatches thru the windows
of our sad, high, pretty rooms
First Snow, Kerhonkson - for Alan ( Top of Page
)
This, then, is the gift the world
has given me
(you have given me)
softly the snow
cupped in the hollows
lying on the surface of the pond
matching my long white candles
which stand at the window
which will burn at dusk while the snow
fills up our valley
this hollow
no friend will wander down
no one arriving brown from Mexico
from the sunfields of California, bearing pot
they are scattered now, dead or silent
or blasted to madness
by the howling brightness of our once common vision
and this gift of yours-
white silence filling the contours of my life.
Ode to Keats, 2, The Dream ( Top of Page
)
Hedged about as we are with prayers
and with taboos
Yet the heart of the magic circle is covered with gray linoleum
Over my head fly demons of the past
Roi
Lori
Jimmy, they pass
With a whooshing sound
The only ghost who stands on the ground
(who stands his ground)
Is Freddie-
I rise a few inches above the circle, and turn somersaults
I want to go shopping, but all I see is my reflection
I look tired and sad. I wear red. I am looking for love.
On the sidewalk are lying the sick and the hungry:
I hear "Spencer's Faerie Queen cost them all their lives."
And Spencer? I ask, "What did this life buy?"
Through the door is the way out, Alan stands in the doorway
In an attitude of leaving, his head is turned
As if to say goodbye, but he's standing still.
Hedged about with primroses
with promises
The magic words we said when we were praying
Have formed a mist about us... |