|
-6/16/04 - Diane di Prima - (Pieces of a Song)
Diane di Prima was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1934,
a second generation American of Italian descent. She began writing at
the age of seven, and committed herself to a life as a poet at the age
of fourteen.
Diane lived and wrote in Manhattan for many years, where she became known
as an important writer of the Beat movement. During that time 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.
Diane is the author of 35 books of poetry and prose, including Pieces
of a Song (City Lights, 1990). Her autobiographical memoir, Recollections
of My Life as a Woman, was published by Viking in April 2001. Her work
has been translated into more than twenty languages. She is currently
one of three poets who have been nominated to be the first Poet Laureate
of California. She lives and writes in San Francisco, where she teaches
private classes and workshops and does individual consultation and editorial
sessions.
Her website is: www.dianediprima.com
Some poems from "Pieces of a Song"
I GET MY PERIOD, SEPTEMBER 1964
How can I forgive you this blood?
Which was not to flow again, but to cling joyously to my womb
To grow, and become a son?
When I turn to you in the night, you sigh, and turn over
When I turn to you in the afternoon, in our bed,
Where you lie reading, you put me off, saying only
It is hot, you are tired.
You picket, you talk of violence, you draw blood
But only from me, unseeded and hungry blood
Which meant to be something else.
TO MY FATHER
In my dreams you stand among roses.
You are still the fine gardener you were.
You worry about mother.
You are still the fierce wind, the intolerable force
that almost broke me.
Who forced my young body into awkward and proper clothes
Who spoke of his standing in the community.
And men's touch is still a little absurd to me
because you trembled when you touched me.
What external law were you expounding?
How can I take your name like prayer?
My youngest son has your eyes.
Why are you knocking at the doors of my brain?
You kept all their rules and more.
What were you promised that you cannot rest?
What fierce, angry honesty in the darkness?
What can you hope who had preferred my death
to the birth of my oldest daughter?
O fierce hummer of tunes
Forget, eat the black seedcake.
In my dreams you stand at the door of your house
and weep for your wife, my mother.
BRIEF WYOMING MEDITATION
I read
Sand Creek massacre: White Antelope's scrotum
Became tobacco pouch
for Colorado volunteer;
I see
destitute prairie: short spiny grass & dusty wind
& all for beef too expensive to eat;
I remember
at least two thirds of you voted for madman Nixon
were glad to bomb the "gooks" in their steamy jungle
& I seek
I seek
I seek
the place where your nature meets mine,
the place where we touch
nothing lasts long
nothing
but earth
& the mountains
TARA
1
on the airplane she said
"I feel stretched"
where? I asked and she laid her hand
on her own crown cakra
2
this morning we walked to breakfast
birds were singing
"HOLY HOLY HOLY HOLY" she whispered
"that's what they were saying
HO-WHEE HO-WHEE
WHOLE WHEAT
Well, anyway whole wheat
Is holy too"
Learn More about Diane di Prima by adding "Pieces
of a Song" to your shopping cart.
|
