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, 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. Di Prima changed her last name from DiPrima to di Prima because she believed it better reflected her Italian ancestry.

Di Prima then went on to Swarthmore College before dropping out to be a poet in Manhattan.

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 (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's psychedelic community.

From 1974 to 1997, di Prima taught poetry at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, of the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado, sharing the program with fellow Beats Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman (co-founders of the program), William Burroughs, Gregory Corso, and others.

Later career

In the late 1960s, di Prima moved permanently to California. There, she became involved with the Diggers and studied Buddhism, Sanskrit, Gnosticism, and alchemy. In 1966, she signed a vow of tax resistance to the Vietnam War. In the 1970s, she published the collection Revolutionary Letters, influenced by her time with the Diggers. which she established together with poets Robert Duncan and David Meltzer. She also taught at 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.

In 2009, di Prima became San Francisco's poet laureate. 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 had several health issues including Parkinson's disease and Sjögren syndrome. She was working on several books until two weeks prior to her death. Di Prima's works are held at the University of Louisville, Indiana University, Southern Illinois University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Bibliography

Poetry

;Collections

  • (reissued Last Gasp, 1998)
  • (translations)
  • Revolutionary Letters. City Lights. 1971. (expanded edition, City Lights, 2021)

Novels

  • (reissued with new afterword, Last Gasp, 1988)

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She also published in literary journals such as Earth's Daughters.

References

Sources

  • Charters, Ann (ed.). The Portable Beat Reader. New York: Penguin Books, 1992. (hc); (pbk)
  • di Prima, Diane, and Jones, LeRoi [Imanu 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).
  • Archived version of Diane di Prima Official Website
  • Di Prima Papers at University of Louisville
  • Diane Di Prima Papers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill