Diane Di Prima

Diane Di Prima - a well known poetess and student of Shunryu Suzuki and Chogyam Trungpa

Diane di Prima and the Dream of the East Village Avant-Garde - The Nation, Nov. 24, 2021

October 26, 2020 - RIP Diane Diprima

Just received this from Jeanne DiPrima: My mother passed this morning.  There will be a family statement tomorrow.  Sending love. 


from this Facebook post on the page for the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics
---thanks Arnie Kotler

Diane Di Prima (1934–2020)

Beloved friend & fiercest poet Diane Di Prima has died

––Diane was here for the start of the 100 year project that is Naropa, and even more crucially a decisive voice in American poetry & poetics, a voice in which poetry & poetics always implies political commitment to revolution
––– we owe her a debt that can never be repaid, which is to say we owe her the debt of love and study and solidarity / memory eternal

––––from Revolutionary Letter #2"

The value of an individual life a credo they taught us to instill fear, and inaction, ‘you only live once’ a fog in our eyes, we are endless as the sea, not separate, we diea million times a day, we are born a million times, each breath life and death :get up, put on your shoes, get started, someone will finish"


New York Times Obituary for Diane (thanks John Steiner and Linda Ruth Cutts)

Washington Post Obit

San Francisco Chronicle Obit - thanks sister Susan

NPR obit - thanks Daya

Diane di Prima on Wikipedia

January 20, 2020

Dominique DiPrima posted the following on Twitter: Visiting my mom (Diane DiPrima) was a huge inspiration to start off 2020! She’s very sick and in a nursing home but she is busy writing and editing books plus reading and studying...No excuses! It’s go time!!

See Alan Marlowe (an ex) page for more on Diane

See Jeanne DiPrima, Diane's oldest of 5.

***


Tassajara, 1969

Even Buddha is lost in this land
The immensity
Takes us all with it, pulverizes, & takes us in

Bodhidharma came from the west.
Coyote met him


4-13-13 - Dianne Di Prima on Zen (no source yet) - first posted in 2013 Scans from Cuke Archives, group A

Excerpt from Beneath a single moon: Buddhism in contemporary American poetry - Shambhala - 1991

Diane di Prima lived and wrote in Manhattan for many years, where she became a significant figure in the Beat movement. She later moved upstate to participate in Timothy Leary’s psychedelic community at Millbrook. For the past twenty-five years she has lived and worked in northern California, where she took part in the activities of the Diggers, lived in a late-sixties commune, studied Zen Buddhism, Sanskrit, and alchemy, and raised five children. She is currently based in San Francisco, where she is one of the cofounders and teachers of the San Francisco Institute of Magical and Healing Arts. Her current works in progress include an autobiographical memoir, Recollections of My Life as a Woman.

As it did for many other artists of my generation, Buddhism first came into my life in the mid-fifties by way of D. T. Suzuki's essays on Zen. What then appeared to us to be a Zen point of view was soon taken for granted as the natural-one might say axiomatic-mind-set of the artist. A kind of clear seeing, combined with a very light touch, and a faith in what one came up with in the work: a sense, as Robert Duncan phrased it years later, that "consciousness itself is shapely." A kind of disattachment goes with this aesthetic: "you "-that is, your conscious controlling self-didn't "make" the work, you may or may not understand it, and in a curious way you have nothing to lose: you don't have to make it into your definitive "good art." A vast relief.

In 1962 I came to the West Coast and encountered Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, who had recently begun the San Francisco Zen Center. Meeting Suzuki Roshi for the first time I met some rockbottom place in myself.

I have often said that if Suzuki had been an apple picker or a welder, I would have promptly taken up either of those arts. I sat because he sat. To know his mind. It was the first time in my twenty-eight years that I had encountered another human being and felt trust. It blew my tough, sophisticated young-artist's mind.

When I returned to New York I brought a zafu back with me. Sitting alone in New York was not the same as sitting at Soko-ji, but I stuck with it and wrote to Suzuki once or twice a year through Richard Baker, who passed Roshi's comments back to me. And whenever I found myself in San Francisco on poetry business, 5:00 A.M. would find me hitch-hiking up Bush Street to zazen.

Finally, after five or six years of this, I moved to San Francisco with my four kids. One of my main motives was to be close to my teacher; the other was to do my share of the work of the "revolution." It was 1968. My days were filled with distributing free food, writing poems for guerilla theatre, hosting the Diggers and the Living Theatre, and sitting zazen. For a while four of the fourteen adults in my commune sat, and we could be seen daily pushing my blue VW bus with its broken starter up Oak Street in the predawn light.

Suzuki Roshi sat with us every morning in the old Japanese temple on Bush Street while the birds and the city slowly came awake, and after the chants he would stand at the door and bow individually to each of us, scrutinizing us keenly but gently as we left. I felt that nothing escaped him, and that the manner of our bows, the hesitation, self-consciousness, or bluff we presented as we set out, told him everything about where we were "at."

I learned much more than I know-even now-from Shunryu Suzuki Roshi in the few years that I studied with him. At the last lay ordination ceremony in 1971 I received a name from him, which I treasure to this day: Kenkai Banto means, I am told, both "Inkstone Ocean, Ten Thousand Waves," and "Inkstone Mother, Ten Thousand Children" (in that ocean and wave in this particular relation also stand for mother and child). My friend and teacher Katagiri Roshi also laughingly translated it as "Ocean (or Tempest) in an Inkstone, Ten Thousand Poems."

After my teacher's death I found the differences I had with Zen Center to be more than I knew how to deal with: my anarchism was at odds with their probably necessary organization. I continued to sit on my own, and to rely on brief visits with various teachers when I was "on the road" to further my practice. In particular, I sought out Katagiri Roshi in Minneapolis, Chogyarn Trungpa Rinpoche at Naropa Institute in Boulder, and other friends: Kwong Roshi and Kobun Chino Roshi when I could.

After eleven years on my own, during which I was also studying, working in, and teaching some of the Western spiritual practices we call Magick, I came to the end of where I could go without a teacher. It became clear that I needed a tradition of Magick that was unbroken, dharmic, and explicit, and a master and sangha I could connect with. The Tibetan tradition, growing as it does out of Bonpo, is the Buddhism that most explicitly addresses the juxtaposition of the magickal view of the world and the dharma. In 1983 I went to see Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, whom I had known since his first visit to Tassajara in 1970 and had worked with for ten years at Naropa Institute, told him of my dilemma, and was accepted as his student. At this time I am studying and practicing the Vajrayana-with, I suspect, something of my own Zen flavor.

I cannot really pin down the influence of Buddhism in my work or my life-I have written very few explicitly "Buddhist poems." What I feel is that Buddhism has permeated my way of seeing the world and of being in it. For me, the basic dharmic teachings are simply axiomatic: emptiness, interdependence. They describe the actual structure of the world. Put another way, the dharma is the warp of the world on which the colors are woven.

But more than that: whether we are aware of it or not, something of Buddhism pervades American consciousness. When Bodhidharma came from India to China with the Buddhism that was to become Ch'an and later Zen, his answer to the Chinese emperor's request for "the holy teachings" was "VASTNESS, NO HOLINESS!" This seems to me to be at the very core of who we are, what we are doing in the world at this time, as a nation and as a species, as we move out of time into space. It's a big risk and, as the dharma reminds us, there are no answers-but consciousness is shapely, and we do know more than we know.


4-19-12 - Help needed for Diane Di Prima - on Shambhala Sun Space

on the Poetry Foundation site

Donate here

Diane was a student of Shunryu Suzuki and other Buddhist teachers and is Poet Laureate of San Francisco. Get well Diane. - dc - posted in What's New and Ads


Here archiving material once on

Diane Di Prima dot com

Got the following material from Web Archive dot org which locates this material at http://dianediprima.com which is obviously not her site anymore. - DC

Bio

Published material, CV

Excerpts from Reviews

Links to Other Websites for More Information


From the Home Page

 "Diane di Prima, revolutionary 
activist of the 1960s Beat literary 
renaissance, heroic in life and 
poetics: a learned humorous 
bohemian, classically educated and 
twentieth-century radical, her 
writing, informed by Buddhist 
equanimity, is exemplary in 
imagist, political and mystical 
modes. A great woman poet in 
second half of American century, 
she broke barriers of race-class 
identity, delivered a major body of 
verse brilliant in its particularity." 
-- Allen Ginsberg


BIOGRAPHY OF DIANE DI PRIMA

Diane di Prima was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1934, a second generation American of Italian descent. Her maternal grandfather, Domenico Mallozzi, was an active anarchist, and associate of Carlo Tresca and Emma Goldman. She began writing at the age of seven, and committed herself to a life as a poet at the age of fourteen.

She lived and wrote in Manhattan for many years, where she became known as an important writer of the Beat movement. During that Lime she co-founded the New York Poets Theatre, and founded the Poets Press, which published the work of many new writers of the period. Together with Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones) she edited the literary newsletter, The Floating Bear (1961-1969). In 1966 she moved to upstate New York where she participated in Timothy Leary’s psychedelic community at Millbrook.

For the past thirty-four years she has lived and worked in northern California, where she took part in the political activities of the Diggers, and wrote Revolutionary Letters. She also studied Zen and Tibetan Buddhism, Sanskrit and alchemy, and raised her five children. In the 1970’s she began her epic poem Loba. of which Parts 1-8 were published in 1978. From 1980 to 1987, she taught Hermetic and esoteric traditions in poetry, in a short-lived but significant Masters-in-Poetics program at New College of California, which she established together with poets Robert Duncan and David Meltzer. She has also taught at California College of Arts and Crafts, and the San Francisco Art Institute. She was one of the co-founders of San Francisco Institute of Magical and Healing Arts (SIMHA), where she taught Western spiritual traditions from 1983 to 1992.

She is the author of 43 books of poetry and prose, including Pieces of a Song (City Lights, 1990). Her work has been translated into at least twenty languages. She has received grants for her poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts. In 1993, she received an Award for Lifetime Achievement in Poetry from the National Poetry Association. In May/June 1994 she was Master Artist-in-Residence at the Atlantic Center for the Arts. In 1999, she was awarded an honorary Doctor of Literature degree from St. Lawrence University. In Spring, 2000, she was Master Poet-in-Residence at Columbia College, Chicago. In 2002, she was one of three finalists for the position of Poet Laureate of California. 

A Loba: Books I & II (twice as much material as the 1978 Wingbow Press edition) was published in the Penguin Poets Series in August 1998. Her autobiographical memoir, Recollections of My Life as a Woman, was published by Viking in April 2001. Recent poetry chapbooks include Towers Down (with Clive Matson), published by Eidolon Editions in 2002; The Ones I Used to Laugh With, Habenicht Press, San Francisco, 2003, and TimeBomb, Eidolon Editions 2006. 

Diane lives and writes in San Francisco, where she teaches private classes and workshops and does individual consultations on writing and creativity. 

Diane di Prima has also worked as a photographer and collagist since the 1960s, and been a watercolorist for the past ten years. She has had four solo art shows, and her work in various genres has been in many group shows. One of her most popular workshops has been "Word and Image" in which she teaches ways to combine the written word and the painted or photographic image.

An expanded edition of Revolutionary Letters, with 23 new political poems from the past 2 decades has just been published by Last Gasp Press of San Francisco. Opening to the Poem,  a book of exercises and essays on poetics will soon be available from Penguin. 

Other works in progress include The Poetry Deal: Poems from the 1980s and 90s; Death Poems for All Seasons; Alchemical Studies (poetry); Not Quite Buffalo Stew, a surreal novel about California life; The Mysteries of Vision,  a book of essays on H.D.; and One Too Like Thee, a study of Shelley's use of traditional Western magic in his life and work.

In 2009, she was named the Poet Laureate of San Francisco and in 2006 received the Fred Cody Award for Lifetime Achievement and community service. She has also been the recipient of numerous awards including an honorary Doctor of Literature degree from St. Lawrence University in 1999 and a 1993 Lifetime Service Award from the National Poetry Association. She has received grants from the Lapis Foundation, the National Endowment n the Arts, the Committee on Poetry, and the Institute for Aesthetic Development. In 2000 she lived in Chicago for several months, while serving for a semester at Columbia College as Master Poet in Residence. 


2-02-14 - Fundraising appeal for Diane Di Prima - Poetess with Parkinsons - with a letter and a poem from Diane. Cuke Archives has made several small donations. - posted in What's New and Ads


7-25-13 - Fund to help Dianne Di Prima, diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease - Cuke Archives made a small donation.. - posted in What's New and Ads


Published material, CV of DIANE DI PRIMA 

    Poet, Prose Writer, Playwright and Teacher

 

PUBLISHED BOOKS:

This Kind of Bird Flies Backward, Totem Press, New York, 1958

Various Fables from Various Places, (editor), G.P. Putnam, New York, 1960

Dinners and Nightmares, Corinth Press, New York, 1961

The New Handbook of Heaven, Auerhahn Press, San Francisco, 1962

The Man Condemned to Death, (translator), no press listed, New York, 1963

Poets' Vaudeville, Feed Folly Press, New York, 1964

Seven Love Poems from the Middle Latin, Poets Press, 1965

Haiku, Love Press, Topanga, CA, 1966

New Mexico Poem, Poets Press, New York, 1967

Earthsong, Poets Press, New York, 1968

Hotel Albert, Poets Press, New York, 1968

War Poems (editor), Poets Press, New York, 1968

Memoirs of a Beatnik, Olympia Press, Paris and New York, 1969

L.A. Odyssey, Poets Press, San Francisco, 1969

The Book of Hours, Brownstone Press, New York 1970

Kerhonkson Journal, Oyez, Berkeley, 1971

Revolutionary Letters, City Lights Books, San Francisco, 1971, 1974, 1979

The Calculus of Variation, Eidolon Editions, San Francisco, 1972

Loba, Part I, Capra Press, Santa Barbara, 1973

The Floating Bear: a Newsletter (editor), Laurence McGilvery, La Jolla, 1973

Freddie Poems, Eidolon Editions, Point Reyes, 1974

Brass Burnace Going Out, Pulp artforms-Intrepid Press, Buffalo, 1975 

Selected Poems: 1956-1975, North Atlantic Books, Plainfield, VT, 1975

Loba, Part II, Eidolon Editions, Point Reyes, 1976

The Loba As Eve, The Phoenix Book Shop, New York, 1977

Selected Poems: 1956-1976, North Atlantic Books, Plainfield, VT 1977

Loba: Parts 1 - 8,  [Book I] Wingbow Press, Berkeley, 1978

Memoirs of a Beatnik (revised), Last Gasp Press, San Francisco, 1988

Wyoming Series, Eidolon Editions, San Francisco, 1988

The Mysteries of Vision, Am Here Books, Santa Barbara, 1988

Pieces of a Song: Selected Poems, City Lights Books, San Francisco, 1990

Seminary Poems, Floating Island, Point Reyes, 1991

The Mask Is the Path of the Star, Thinker Review Internatl, Louisville, 1993

Loba, [Parts 1 - 16, Books I & II] Penguin, New York, 1998

Dinners and Nightmares [expanded edition], Last Gasp, 1998

Recollections of My Life as a Woman: The New York Years, Viking, NY 2001

Fun with Forms [ltd. ed.] Eidolon Editions, San Francisco, 2001

Towers Down (with Clive Matson) Eidolon Editions, San Francisco, 2002

The Ones I Used to Laugh With, Habenicht Press, San Francisco 2003

TimeBomb, Eidolon Editions, San Francisco, 2006

 

MAGAZINE PUBLICATION:

Over 300 literary and popular magazines and newspapers.

 

ANTHOLOGY PUBLICATION:

Work has appeared in over 100 anthologies.

 

FOREIGN PUBLICATION:

Work has been translated into over twenty languages.

 

READINGS AND LECTURES:

at over 300 Universities and major institutions. (Partial list on request)

 

EDITORIAL EXPERIENCE:

1961-69    The Floating Bear (literary newsletter), editor and publisher

1961-62    Kulchur, contributing editor

1965-67    Signal, associate editor

1968-70    Guerilla, contributing editor

1971-72    The Sunday Paper, columnist

1978-80    City Arts,  columnist

1987-93    Mama Bear's News and Notes, columnist

1992-93    Harbin Quarterly, columnist

 

PUBLISHING EXPERIENCE:

1964-69    Poets Press, owner: publisher, production, printing & editor

1974-now    Eidolon Editions, owner: publisher, production & editor

 

TEACHING EXPERIENCE:

1970-72    Zen Center Writing Workshop

1971        S.F. YMCA Women's Writing Workshop

1971-75    Intersection for the Arts, community workshops

1971-77    National Endowment for the Arts, Poetry in the Schools program. Workshops and residences in Wyoming, Montana, Arizona, Minnesota, etc. 

1972        Esalen Institute, women's writing groups

1974-97    Naropa Institute, School of Poetics, faculty

1975-78    Poets Institute, community workshops

1976-77    Napa State Hospital, Artist in Residence

1976-78    Point Reyes Dance Palace, community workshops

1978        Neighborhood Foundation, community workshops

1979        New College of California, visiting writer

1980-87    New College of California, Masters in Poetics faculty

1983-91    San Francisco Institute of Magickal and Healing Arts, cofounder and faculty member

1990        Hartford St. Zen Center, community workshops

1990        UCSC, guest lecturer

1990-92    California College of Arts & Crafts, senior lecturer

1992        S.F. Art Institute, visiting faculty

1994        Atlantic Center for the Arts, Writer in Residence

1994        California Institute of Intergral Studies (CIIS), adjunct faculty Integral Studies Doctoral program

1995        CIIS, adjunct faculty, Women's Studies Doctoral Program

2000        Columbia College, Chicago, Master Poet in Residence

1995-present  Private classes in poetry and poetics, San Francisco

Also workshops and intensive courses at various Arts, Poetry or Women's Festivals from 1966 to the present.

 

THEATRE:

1961        Living Theatre, Monday night series, Stage manager

1961-65    New York Poets Theatre, co-founder and artistic director

1978-82    Lapis Trio, multi-media performance group, co-founder

 

Plays produced at     

        Judson Poets Theatre (New York City)

        YMHA, New York

        Cafe Cino (New York City)

        Theatre for the New City (New York City)

        Intersection (San Francisco)

        Point Reyes Dance Palace

        La Mama Hollywood

        Exit Theatre (San Francisco)

        Peculiar Works (New York City)

 

Poetry Used in Theatre Productions:

"Jazz Poets at the Grotto"

    The Production Company, Theater Guinevere, NYC, 1983

Loba used in the film "In Search of the Goddess" directed by Christina     Andreae

"Beat"

    North Beach Repertory Theatre, San Francisco, 1992 and 1993

"The Beat at Book-It"

    Book-It Repertory Theatre, Seattle, 1998

"The Beats"

    Writers Theatre, Chicago 1998

"Ave" from Loba  directed by Ann Filmer 

    Estrogen Festival, Aardvark Theatre, Chicago, 2001

"Axis Mundi: The Story of the Witches"

    The Sid Williams Theatre, Courtenay, BC, Canada, 2003

    Parts of Loba used.

Also work used in theatre piece based on beat poetry in Tucscon, 1998

 

FILMS :

"The Beat Generation, an American Dream" (featured interview)

"Poetry in Motion" (Canadian film, featured performance)

"What Happened to Kerouac?" (brief interview)

 

Also performed in several experimental movies in New York in the 1960's including: 

    "Normal Love" by Jack Smith

    "In Between" by Jonas Mekas

    "The Queen of Sheba Meets the Wolfman" by Andy Warhol

    and short works by John Herbert McDowell and George Herms.

 

VIDEOS:

"Fried Shoes Cooked Diamonds" (brief appearance)

"Gang of Souls" (video, featured interview)

"Beat Angels" (Mexican video, featured interview)

"Little Italy" (Public Television video by Will Parrinello, brief interview)

"Coming to Terms with Impermanence", a documentary video of my life and work is currently being completed by Melanie La Rosa.

 

ART SHOWS:

Group Shows:

1974    MOMA, S.F. "Rainbow Show"

1977    Point Reyes Dance Palace

1985    S.F. Dharmadhatu, "Dharma Art"

1989    Naropa Institute, "Word and Image"

1996    Whitney Museum & DeYoung Museum, "Beat Culture and the New America"

2004/05   S.F. State Poetry Center @ California Historical Society, "Poetry and Its Arts: Bay Area Interactions 1954-2004"

2005/06   Santa Monica MOMA & 4 other venues "Seminia Culture"

2006    Passaic County Community College, "Crossing Boundaries: Visual Art by Writers"   

2005/07 Santa Monica Museum of Art, Berkeley Art Museum (UC, Berkeley), Nora Eccles Museum of Art (Utah State Univ.), Edwin A. Ulrich Museum of Art (Wichita. KS), Gray Art Gallery (NYU), "Semina Culture: Wallace Berman  & His Circle"

 

One-Woman Shows:

2001    "Blue Landscapes" (watercolors), Passaic County Community College

2002    “Hibiscus & Hills” (watercolors) North Light Book Shop and Cafe, Cotati,     California

2004    "The Interrupted Sleep" (collages) North Light Book Shop and Cafe,     Cotati, California

2004    "The Moon Will Claim Me" (collages) Bird & Beckett Books & Records

 

WORKS SET TO MUSIC:

John Herbert McDowell

    "Discovery of America" (a full-length musical)

    "Poets Vaudeville" (a dance-opera)

    "Whale Honey" (incidental music for a full-length play)

John Braden (song writer)

    "Dee's Song"

    "November"

Andrew Stiller

    "Pierrot Solaire" (from Revolutionary Letters)

Peter Hartman:

    "Elegy for Charles Stanley"

    Selections from Loba

    "So Much of Space" (from Dinners and Nightmares)

Works Set to Music (cont'd)

Anthony Davis

    "Ave" (from Loba)

Robert Rowe

    "Rant" (for voices & interactive computer)

Joanna Lande (Iris: women's a capella group)

    Selections from Loba

Alexander Marlowe:

    "Wyoming" (from Revolutionary Letters)

Steven Lyle Smith

    "Studies in Light" (for mezzo-soprano and compact disc)

Improvisations:

Also read and performed with the following musicians:

    Chicago Art Ensemble, University of Chicago (1967)

    Robert Hunter, Marshall California (1975)

    Art Lande, Naropa Institute, Boulder (1982)

    Alexander Marlowe, Great American Music Hall, S.F. (various dates)

Audio Book:

An audio book, a reading by the author of all of Loba Books I and II, on 4 CDs (as published by Pengin) will be available in 2007.

 

GRANTS AND AWARDS:

1966                National Endowment on the Arts, for Poets Press

1966 & 1970    Committee on Poetry

1967 & 1970    Annual Literary Anthology Award, Coordinating Council of Little Magazines 

1973                National Endowment on the Arts

1978 & 1979    Lapis Foundation

1986                Institute for Aesthetic Development

1987                The Secret Six - Medal of Valor

1993                National Poetry Association - Lifetime Service Award

1994                Aniello Lauri Award for Creative Writing

1994                Artist in Residence, Atlantic Center for the Arts

1999                Received Doctor of Literature (honorary degree) from St. Lawrence University

2000                Master Poet in Residence, Columbia College, Chicago

2002 & 2005    Finalist (one of three) for Poet Laureate of San Francisco

2003                Finalist (one of three) for Poet Laureate of California

2006                Fred Cody Award for Lifetime Achievement and Community Service

2008                Official Poet Laureate of the City of San Francisco

 

Various grants for The Poets Institute (Point Reyes), and as editor and publisher of The Floating Bear, and of Poets Press and Eidolon Editions.


EXCERPTS FROM REVIEWS OF DIANE DI PRIMA’S WORK

Diane di Prima gives us a rare opportunity to view the Beat Generation and its subsequent journey to the East through a woman's eyes. 
—Bill Zavatsky, New York Times, 1976

Where there was a strong writer who could hold her own, like Diane di Prima, we would certainly work with her and recognize her. She was a genius. 
—Allen Ginsberg, Boulder Camera Magazine, July 1989

a few people like her get made every few thousand years, in order to highlight the dullness of the rest. 
—Andrei Codrescu, The Baltimore Sun, May 1983

Ms. di Prima runs without faltering into the realm of myth making. . . . With images that flash with clarity and brilliance of color in the mind’s eye, Loba paces back through time to femaleness as an element in the galaxy. 
—Berkeley Gazette, November 1978

Growing up in the fifties, you had to figure it out for yourself—which she did, and stayed open—as a woman, uninterested in any possibility of static investment or solution. Her search for human center is among the most moving I have witnessed. 
—Robert Creeley, March 1973

The proof of Di Prima’s work lies in its moods and perceptions, which are not frozen within the Beat environment; anyone can identify. 
Gene Detro, San Francisco Examiner

The gathering in one volume of the eight parts of the Loba sequence offers the opportunity for an overview of di Prima’s ambitious construct, which directs itself essentially toward an epic realization of the female principle. 
—Armand Schwerner, The American Book Review, June 1980

She has an ear thank heaven, a sense of the lyric that places her among the best.  How few poets can write a sentence! But di Prima reels them off long sinuous sentences. . that move when they should move and stop when they should stop. . . she is eloquent. . and she delights in grammar, the living grammar that will keep her poems memorable long after her cacophonic siblings have coughed themselves into silence. 
—Hayden Carruth, Bookletter, June 1976

A founder and editor of several of the most significant Beat journals, organizer of some of the original poetry readings, an accomplished and prolific poet whose relative obscurity compared to the men with whom she is usually associated is something of a scandal today. 
—Alix Kates Shulman, The Village Voice, 1989

A true sage-poet. 
—Gary Snyder

Diane di Prima, revolutionary activist of the 1960s’ Beat literary renaissance, heroic in life and poetics; a learned humorous bohemian, classically educated, and twentieth-century radical, her writing, informed by Buddhist equanimity, is exemplary in imagist, political and mystical modes. A great world poet in the second half of American century, she broke barriers of race-class identity, delivered a major body of verse brilliant in its particularity. 
—Allen Ginsberg

ON LOBA: 
The Loba poems are an epic act of language, a great geography of the female imagination. 
—Adrienne Rich

I’m glad to have Loba. They are old incantations made new in our living flesh. 
—Muriel Rukeyser

In the twentieth century, Woman has liberated herself from the pedestal upon which she has been set up,’ mostly by men. Loba enthrones her again, only this time it is done by herself. 
—Lawrence Ferlinghetti

There’s primal magic at work here. Diane di Prima pulls readers and hearers of Loba into the center of Yin, and imbues us with life power. 
—Maxine Hong Kingston

Loba is a mysterious compelling poem or series of poems whose vision of the female godhead is precise, ever changing, even deepening. It incorporates ecstasy and rot, all the forms of the female experience from birth through death, transmuting them into poetry that seizes the imagination. Diane di Prima has borrowed from many mythologies to create her own luminous myth of the wolf goddess. 
—Marge Pircey

Loba is an actual touchable visionary poem of sentience and myriad-minded mammal nature. Loba is about points and swirls of energy, about alchemy, and about the biology of imagination. It all happens in the real, ever-arising universes. 
—Michael McClure

My response to Loba is one of awe and gratitude. Blood-drenched and liberating, this is a poem for the ages. 
—Robert Hunter

This epic poem is a radical classic—truly original, imbued with the raw, the wild.. the feminine. . . a re-cultivation of inspiration through strength. 
—Joan Halifax

These oracular poems sing out in testament & celebration of fierce formic psyche & wisdom, The Loba-cycle is a potent mythic adventure everyone should experience. 
—Anne Waldman

The poem induces a lovely experience of this world as exactly another world; it would retrieve the world for women. I’ve very pleased to welcome it in its entirety so far. 
—Alice Notley

I love this book. Its one to travel with. Wander through, growl, fall down and get up again. People and poets can only be grateful that Diane di Prima’s illuminated and gnarly words are beating through American poetry. 
—Eileen Myles

Aphrodisiac and meditation, a sumptuous celebration of body and mind, Loba exalts the mutable world with fragrance and fire. It is a brilliant imagined book. 
—Rikki Dticornet

ON RECOLLECTIONS OF MY LIFE AS A WOMAN:

It's her very finest writing. 
—Lawrence Ferlinghetti 
 

Recollections of My Life as a Woman is a brilliant and disturbing book. Because it is so unashamedly personal and true, it will disturb all those who lived that passionate time when theatre and poetry, love and revolution seemed at last conjoined. And those who have not lived that stirring time will stand amazed at the creative world that Diane di Prima’s life embodies. 
—Judith Malina 
 

Diane di Prima is bona fide root-stock. An amazing creative force, Diane was and remains a major talent, and an inspiration, and this book is either a wonderful first dip into her life and mind, or a source text for a deeper understanding of her fastidious and magical poetry. For me, it’s both, and a rare treat. I urge readers to make her acquaintance. 
—Peter Coyote 
 

A bountiful, blessed book! Using words like wants, the poetess leads us through her early formative years in the creative heart of New York’s artistic world. This is a defining autobiography for a certain section of the twentieth century. 
—Jean Houston 
 

Recollections of My Life as a Woman was wonderful for me personally to he able to reminisce again about old friends, McClure, Ginsberg, Burroughs, Ferlinghetti, among others. This is a must read for women, poets, and people looking for a way to define their life’s work. A romp of a read! I loved it. 
—Dennis Hopper 
 

No writer of fiction could create a tale to equal the incredible story of Diane di Prima’s journey through life. She shares with us her struggles and triumphs, painting an unforgettable portrait of people and places that make the reader feel like a traveling companion on her life’s journeys. One of the enduring poets of the Beat Generation, her strength of spirit and honesty shine through every page of this memoir.
—David Amran


Links to Other Websites for More Information

[This page from Archive dot com. Have not checked these links. - DC]

    Small Press Distribution 
    Consortium is committed to Independent Presses and the fascinating and important books they bring to our world.

     Books by Diane Di Prima 
     Memoirs of a Beatnik An erotic self-portrait by di Prima, tracing her own journey through Beat days and...[See 5 more 
     pages from this site!]

     Buy Diane di Prima Books at: www.bird-beckett.com
     2788 Diamond St. San Francisco, CA -- 415.586.3733, 

     Diane Di Prima 
     Contains a biography, a short excerpt from a poem and links.

     The Beat Page - Diane di Prima 
     - Features examples of her poetry, a biography, and links to other Beat Generation authors.

     Diane di Prima at the Blue Neon Alley 
     Directory includes quotes and links to Beat Generation sites around the world. Hear a Bay TV interview of the 
     poet.

      LitKicks: Diane DiPrima 
     A short biography of Di Prima on the Literary Kicks beat generation site.

     Diane di Prima 
     Poet Priestess Diane di Prima: The first, and probably the most important, woman writer of the Beat Movement.

     Diane di Prima - bio and links 
     Diane di Prima. Click image for enlargement click for enlargement. Born: August 6, 1934 Place of Birth: Brooklyn, 
     New York.

     Diane di Prima Papers, University of Louisville 
     Archive housed at the University of Louisville.

     Diane di Prima, Loba 
     Diane di Prima, Loba (Penguin, 1998) A prolific writer generally associated with the Beat Generation, Diane di 
     Prima deserves wider recognition...

    di Prima, Diane - University of Delaware 
     University library describes its collection of the poet's correspondence and poetry. Includes a brief biography.

     MetroActive Books | Diane di Prima 
     Central | Archives ] Beat the Devil: Poet Diane di Prima published her life story at a corporate......did it her 
     way. Beating the Odds Poet Diane di Prima tells what it was like to be a Beat--and a...[See 2 more pages from 
     this site!]

     Thelonious Monk - jazz poetry - Diane Di Prima. 
     - Thelonious Monk - An appreciation of the great jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk

     Gli autori della Beat Generation: Diane Di Prima 
     ...La Beat Generation| Gli Autori| Chi Siamo Diane Di Prima Nasce nel 1934. Cresce a New York City....... 
     scrivendo e coltivando studi e pratiche di guarigione che nel mondo occidentale vengono definiti...[See 2 more 
     pages from this site!]

     Memoirs of a Beatnik, by Diane Di Prima 
    Memoirs of a Beatnik, by Diane Di Prima 138 pages, Paperback, List price $12.95......save 
     $2.59 (20%)! A good book, mostly about Diane's sexual experiences....[See 8 more pages from this site!]

     Diane Di Prima @ Poetry In Revolt- 
     Diane Di Prima. Diane Di Prima is a poet of Italian American heritage, and a wonderful beautiful poet. ... Rook's 
     Beat Page. Di Prima Interview. Diane Di Prima Page. ...

     Article on Djuna Barnes & Diane di Prima by Apollinaire Scherr 
     To The Dogs & The Dove by Djuna Barnes Like & Murder Cake by Diane di Prima 
     article in sfgate.com by Apollinaire Scherr Tickets & Directions / Home / Now Playing & Coming Soon / Back to 
     Media List / To email us Don't Be Absurd!

     BookZen-Authors: Diane DiPrima, Poet.: 
     Books and poems by Diane DiPrima. Bibliography

     COSMIC BASEBALL ASSOCIATION FMS Diane DiPrima 1997 Cosmic Player Plate 
     The Cosmic Baseball Association is an Internet-based educational art project.

     Diane DiPrima's REVOLUTIONARY LETTERS notebook 
     To: Multiple recipients of list <exlibris@library.berkeley.edu> Subject: Diane DiPrima's REVOLUTIONARY LETTERS notebook

      Rant, from a Cool Place by Diane DiPrima 
     The following poem is a featured selection from the Evergreen Review Reader 1967-1972, to be published by Four Walls Eight Windows in the fall of 1998. 
     Originally appeared in Evergreen #88, April 1971

     Diane DiPrima. Afterword (for the last bear). 
     Mandeville Special Collections Library Geisel Library University of California, San Diego Extent: 0.10 linear feet (1 item (1 leaf) in one folder.)

    Incunabula Interview 
     Joe Matheny's 1992 interview of Diane diPrima