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Diane di Prima (August 6, 1934October 25, 2020) was an American poet, known for her association with the Beat movement. She was also an artist, prose writer, and teacher. Her magnum opus is widely considered to be ''Loba'', a collection of poems first published in 1978 then extended in 1998.


Early life and education

Di Prima was born in
Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
, New York, on August 6, 1934. She was a second generation American of Italian descent. Her father Francis was a lawyer, and her mother Emma (née Mallozzi) was a teacher. Her maternal grandfather, Domenico Mallozzi, was an activist and associated with
anarchists Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not necessari ...
Carlo Tresca Carlo Tresca (March 9, 1879 – January 11, 1943) was an Italian-American newspaper editor, orator, and labor organizer who was a leader of the Industrial Workers of the World during the 1910s. He is remembered as a leading public opponent of fas ...
and
Emma Goldman Emma Goldman (June 27, 1869 – May 14, 1940) was a Russian-born anarchist political activist and writer. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the ...
. Di Prima changed her last name from DiPrima to di Prima because she believed it better reflected her Italian ancestry. She attended academically elite
Hunter College High School Hunter College High School is a secondary school located in the Carnegie Hill neighborhood on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. It is administered by Hunter College of the City University of New York (CUNY). Hunter is publicly funded, and there i ...
where she became part of a small group of friends including classmate
Audre Lorde Audre Lorde (; born Audrey Geraldine Lorde; February 18, 1934 – November 17, 1992) was an American writer, womanist, radical feminist, professor, and civil rights activist. She was a self-described "black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet," wh ...
who formed a sort of Dead Poets Society calling themselves “the Branded.” They cut class to roam the city, hanging out in bookstores, sharing their own poetry and holding séances for dead poets. Di Prima then went on to
Swarthmore College Swarthmore College ( , ) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1864, with its first classes held in 1869, Swarthmore is one of the earliest coeduca ...
before dropping out to be a poet in
Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
. Di Prima began writing as a child and by the age of 19 was corresponding with
Ezra Pound Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Fascism, fascist collaborator in Italy during World War II. His works ...
and
Kenneth Patchen Kenneth Patchen (December 13, 1911January 8, 1972) was an American poet and novelist. He experimented with different forms of writing and incorporated painting, drawing, and jazz music into his works, which have been compared with those of Will ...
. Her first book of poetry, ''This Kind of Bird Flies Backward'', was published in 1958 by
Hettie Jones Hettie Jones (née Cohen; born in 1934) is an American poet. She has written twenty-three books that include a memoir of the Beat Generation, three volumes of poetry, and publications for children and young adults, including ''The Trees Stand ...
and LeRoi Jones' Totem Press.


Career


Involvement with the Beats

Di Prima spent the late 1950s and early 1960s in
Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
, where she participated in the emerging Beat movement. She spent some time in
California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
at Stinson Beach and
Topanga Canyon Topanga () (Tongva: ''Topaa'nga'') is a census-designated place (CDP) in western Los Angeles County, California, United States. Located in the Santa Monica Mountains, the community exists in Topanga Canyon and the surrounding hills. The narrow s ...
, returned to New York City, and eventually moved to
San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
permanently. She edited the newspaper ''The Floating Bear'' with Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones) and was co-founder of the New York Poets Theatre and founder of the Poets Press. On several occasions she faced charges of obscenity by the United States government due to her work with the New York Poets Theatre and ''The Floating Bear''. In 1961 she was arrested by the
Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, ...
(FBI) for publishing two poems in ''The Floating Bear''. According to di Prima, police persistently harassed her due to the nature of her poetry. In 1966, she spent some time at Millbrook with
Timothy Leary Timothy Francis Leary (October 22, 1920 – May 31, 1996) was an American psychologist and author known for his strong advocacy of psychedelic drugs. Evaluations of Leary are polarized, ranging from bold oracle to publicity hound. He was "a her ...
's psychedelic community. From 1974 to 1997, di Prima taught poetry at the
Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics is a school of Naropa University, located in Boulder, Colorado, United States. It was founded in 1974 by Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman, as part of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s 100-year experimen ...
, of the Naropa Institute in
Boulder, Colorado Boulder is a home rule city that is the county seat and most populous municipality of Boulder County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 108,250 at the 2020 United States census, making it the 12th most populous city in Color ...
, sharing the program with fellow Beats
Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...
and
Anne Waldman Anne Waldman (born April 2, 1945) is an American poet. Since the 1960s, Waldman has been an active member of the Outrider experimental poetry community as a writer, performer, collaborator, professor, editor, scholar, and cultural/political activ ...
(co-founders of the program),
William Burroughs William Seward Burroughs II (; February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American writer and visual artist, widely considered a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodern author who influenced popular cultur ...
,
Gregory Corso Gregory Nunzio Corso (March 26, 1930 – January 17, 2001) was an American poet and a key member of the Beat movement. He was the youngest of the inner circle of Beat Generation writers (with Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burrou ...
, and others.


Later career

In the late 1960s, di Prima moved permanently to California. There, she became involved with the
Diggers The Diggers were a group of religious and political dissidents in England, associated with agrarian socialism. Gerrard Winstanley and William Everard, amongst many others, were known as True Levellers in 1649, in reference to their split from ...
and studied
Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gra ...
,
Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
,
Gnosticism Gnosticism (from grc, γνωστικός, gnōstikós, , 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems which coalesced in the late 1st century AD among Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people ...
, and
alchemy Alchemy (from Arabic: ''al-kīmiyā''; from Ancient Greek: χυμεία, ''khumeía'') is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscientific tradition that was historically practiced in China, India, the Muslim world, ...
. In 1966, she signed a vow of
tax resistance Tax resistance is the refusal to pay tax because of opposition to the government that is imposing the tax, or to government policy, or as opposition to taxation in itself. Tax resistance is a form of direct action and, if in violation of the tax ...
to the
Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
. In the 1970s, she published the collection ''Revolutionary Letters'', influenced by her time with the Diggers. At The Band's famous Last Waltz concert in 1976, she read aloud from Revolutionary Letters and the one-line poem "Get Yer Cut Throat Off My Knife". She published her major work, the long poem ''Loba'', in 1978, with an enlarged edition in 1998. From the 1960s on she worked as a photographer and a collage artist, and in the last decade or so of her life she took up
watercolor painting Watercolor (American English American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the Languages of the U ...
. From 1980 to 1987, di Prima taught
Hermetic Hermetic or related forms may refer to: * of or related to the ancient Greek Olympian god Hermes * of or related to Hermes Trismegistus, a legendary Hellenistic figure based on the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth ** , the ancient and m ...
and
esoteric Western esotericism, also known as esotericism, esoterism, and sometimes the Western mystery tradition, is a term scholars use to categorise a wide range of loosely related ideas and movements that developed within Western society. These ideas a ...
traditions in poetry, in a short-lived but significant Masters-in-Poetics program at
New College of California New College of California was a college founded in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1971 by former Gonzaga University President John Leary. It ceased operations in early 2008. New College's main campus was housed in several buildings in the Mission ...
, which she established together with poets Robert Duncan and David Meltzer. She has also taught at the
San Francisco Art Institute San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a private college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mississippi River. Approximately ...
. 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. In 2009, di Prima became San Francisco's poet laureate.


Activism

Di Prima was known for her activism, having been exposed early on to political consciousness by her grandfather, Domenico, as detailed in her memoir ''Recollections of My Life as a Woman''; she also discusses this in a 2001 interview with David Hadbawnik. In her memoir, di Prima describes seeing her grandfather speak at a rally in the park, writing: "I am proud of him, and afraid, but mostly amazed. His words have awakened my full acknowledgment, consent. I hear what he says as truth, and it seems I have always known it. I feel old, self-contained, passionate with the pure passion of a child." Moments such as these sparked a dedication to social activism, especially as it concerned women's rights, that persisted throughout di Prima's life.


Death and legacy

Di Prima died on October 25, 2020, at San Francisco General Hospital. She was 86 years old. She was battling several health issues such as
Parkinson's disease Parkinson's disease (PD), or simply Parkinson's, is a long-term degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that mainly affects the motor system. The symptoms usually emerge slowly, and as the disease worsens, non-motor symptoms becom ...
and Sjögren syndrome. However, she did not suffer any cognitive impediment and was working on several books until two weeks prior to her death. Di Prima's works are held at the
University of Louisville The University of Louisville (UofL) is a public research university in Louisville, Kentucky. It is part of the Kentucky state university system. When founded in 1798, it was the first city-owned public university in the United States and one of ...
,
Indiana University Indiana University (IU) is a system of public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana. Campuses Indiana University has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration of IUPUI. *Indiana Universit ...
,
Southern Illinois University Southern Illinois University is a system of public universities in the southern region of the U.S. state of Illinois. Its headquarters is in Carbondale, Illinois. Board of trustees The university is governed by the nine member SIU Board of Tr ...
, and the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States ...
.


Diane di Prima Wikipedia vandalism

In November 2017, a user of Wikipedia added the Activism section to the page, consisting of fictional stories such as di Prima having "watched an obese homeless man get beaten by a group of children" and falsely insisting that di Prima was an outspoken
fat acceptance movement The fat acceptance movement, also known as fat pride, fat empowerment, and fat activism, is a social movement which seeks to eliminate the social stigma of fatness from social attitudes by pointing out the social obstacles which are faced by ...
advocate and
Worms Armageddon ''Worms Armageddon'' is a 1999 turn-based strategy video game developed and published by Team17. It was originally released for the Microsoft Windows operating system, and was later ported to the PlayStation (console), PlayStation, Dreamcast, N ...
fan. This edit stayed on Wikipedia for three years, even being occasionally fixed for grammatical errors by users of Wikipedia, until her death in October 2020 when her page was updated to exclude this information and to include accurate details about her involvement with activism. On September 24th, 2018, a fake blog was created to be used as a citation for the page, consisting of a fictional interview in which di Prima reads a poem about
worms Worms may refer to: *Worm, an invertebrate animal with a tube-like body and no limbs Places *Worms, Germany Worms () is a city in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, situated on the Upper Rhine about south-southwest of Frankfurt am Main. It had ...
. Following her death, several websites included the false information that di Prima was a
fat acceptance movement The fat acceptance movement, also known as fat pride, fat empowerment, and fat activism, is a social movement which seeks to eliminate the social stigma of fatness from social attitudes by pointing out the social obstacles which are faced by ...
supporter, such as a 2020
Vogue Vogue may refer to: Business * ''Vogue'' (magazine), a US fashion magazine ** British ''Vogue'', a British fashion magazine ** ''Vogue Arabia'', an Arab fashion magazine ** ''Vogue Australia'', an Australian fashion magazine ** ''Vogue China'', ...
article entitled 'Why You Should Know About Diane di Prima, the Beat Poet Decades Ahead of Her Time'.https://www.vogue.com/article/diane-di-prima-obit


Bibliography

* * (reissued
Last Gasp Last Gasp or The Last Gasp may refer to * Last Gasp (publisher) * ''Last Gasp'' (''Inside No. 9''), a TV episode * '' The Last Gasp'', a 2007 album by Impaled * ''The Last Gasp'' (novel) * "Last Gasp" (song) {{dab ...
, 1998) * * (translations) * * * * (reissued with new afterword,
Last Gasp Last Gasp or The Last Gasp may refer to * Last Gasp (publisher) * ''Last Gasp'' (''Inside No. 9''), a TV episode * '' The Last Gasp'', a 2007 album by Impaled * ''The Last Gasp'' (novel) * "Last Gasp" (song) {{dab ...
, 1988) * * *''Revolutionary Letters''. City Lights. 1971. (expanded edition, City Lights, 2021) * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Notes


References

* Charters, Ann (ed.). ''The Portable Beat Reader''. New York: Penguin Books, 1992. (hc); (pbk) * di Prima, Diane, and Jones, LeRoi manu Amiri Baraka eds. The Floating Bear, a newsletter: Numbers 1-37, 1961-1969. Introduction and notes adapted from interviews with Diane di Prima. La Jolla, California: Laurence McGilvery, 1973. } (library binding) * di Prima, Diane. ''Recollections of My Life as a Woman''. Viking USA (2001).


External links


Archived version of Diane di Prima Official Website
* *
Di Prima Papers
at University of Louisville

at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Di Prima, Diane 1934 births 2020 deaths American tax resisters Diggers (theater) Beat Generation writers Hunter College High School alumni Swarthmore College alumni Writers from Brooklyn Writers from the San Francisco Bay Area Poets Laureate of San Francisco American women poets American people of Italian descent Activists from California English-language haiku poets 20th-century American poets 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American poets 21st-century American women writers