I woke up to the news that Diane Di Prima died. A blow to my heart.
You have to understand that Di Prima was my true introduction to the beats era. Not Kerouac, not Burroughs or Ginsberg. Diane was first for me. I remember the first time I saw the cover of "Memoirs of a Beatnik," her thick hair pulled back, eyes down cast. I inhaled the book, and then read it again. It was the first time I had read a female writing about sex, about curiosity. Her ability to experience and observe struck something in me--it is what I wanted. To live and live and live and write about all of it. I was drawn to her ability to be in a moment, to reflect on said moment, to craft both perspectives at once.
It was brand new to me. I was a fairly quiet high school kid who played sports and carried around a hardcover book of my own poems, too shy to share it with anyone. I was trying to figure out where I fit in while simultaneously realized I simply didn't fit. As a teenager this is a devastating thing to try to understand. It would be so much easier, I thought, to be like the carbon copies around me. Easier on everyone and easier on myself. They are small things now, but I was teased for my hair, my skin color, my thrifted clothes, for being quiet, for being a good student, for writing. I was trying to figure out who I was while also trying to ignore what everyone else was telling me what I was supposed to be. I felt like the misunderstood ugly duckling for a long time, and I also developed a shame around the things I loved most. Which is awful. No other way to say it. It's awful.
I liked to go to the bookstore and sit on the floor in the poetry section, reading whatever caught my eye. Di Prima found me that way. All female writers before her were Plath or Dickinson--not really my speed at the time. Diane's voice was more matter of fact and real to me, and she wrote bluntly about sex, which was something I wasn't really exposed to at the time. Reading her work made me feel less ashamed of my own writing. It reminded me that yes, there was life beyond my small town high school life, and my goodness did I need that message right then. I always felt the twitch, the need to get out of there as quickly as possible. I think Di Prima gave me that first nudge, first taste of other types of living. As an adult, I think sometimes it's easy to look back and see moments where something clicked, and made it so. What that "something" is? Can't say. But her work was a defining "click into place" moment for me.
And Di Prima guided me to other incredible female writers--Lorde, Giovanni, Woolf. Eventually I delved even further into the Beats--consuming Ginsberg and Jack, Burroughs. At 19 I dated a monster of an individual who adored Burroughs and Bukowski(of course that's who he adored). But Diane was the one who truly tripped my wire. And later, I would go to San Francisco and pick up "Women of the Beat Generation," and learn about a slew of incredible women in the scene. Elise Cowen, Joanne Kyger, Ruth Weiss. Voices I wanted and needed much, much more than Jack and the boys.
I'm so thankful for Diane Di Prima's existence, and her role in my growth as a writer. I've mentioned it before--I feel like I always mention it when a writer dies--when I writer passes away, it hits me differently. Shared craft? Shared mentality? I'm sure that's a part of it. And also being a writer, and now and then feeling that overwhelming urgency to write everything I can because no time is guaranteed to us. We will pass and there will probably be dozens of poems still under construction in our files and notbeooks. It frightens me and drives me. Make the art, say the thing, create now, now while we have the ability. Not even for any sort of audience, but for our own lightness and being. For our own living.
You have to understand that Di Prima was my true introduction to the beats era. Not Kerouac, not Burroughs or Ginsberg. Diane was first for me. I remember the first time I saw the cover of "Memoirs of a Beatnik," her thick hair pulled back, eyes down cast. I inhaled the book, and then read it again. It was the first time I had read a female writing about sex, about curiosity. Her ability to experience and observe struck something in me--it is what I wanted. To live and live and live and write about all of it. I was drawn to her ability to be in a moment, to reflect on said moment, to craft both perspectives at once.
It was brand new to me. I was a fairly quiet high school kid who played sports and carried around a hardcover book of my own poems, too shy to share it with anyone. I was trying to figure out where I fit in while simultaneously realized I simply didn't fit. As a teenager this is a devastating thing to try to understand. It would be so much easier, I thought, to be like the carbon copies around me. Easier on everyone and easier on myself. They are small things now, but I was teased for my hair, my skin color, my thrifted clothes, for being quiet, for being a good student, for writing. I was trying to figure out who I was while also trying to ignore what everyone else was telling me what I was supposed to be. I felt like the misunderstood ugly duckling for a long time, and I also developed a shame around the things I loved most. Which is awful. No other way to say it. It's awful.
I liked to go to the bookstore and sit on the floor in the poetry section, reading whatever caught my eye. Di Prima found me that way. All female writers before her were Plath or Dickinson--not really my speed at the time. Diane's voice was more matter of fact and real to me, and she wrote bluntly about sex, which was something I wasn't really exposed to at the time. Reading her work made me feel less ashamed of my own writing. It reminded me that yes, there was life beyond my small town high school life, and my goodness did I need that message right then. I always felt the twitch, the need to get out of there as quickly as possible. I think Di Prima gave me that first nudge, first taste of other types of living. As an adult, I think sometimes it's easy to look back and see moments where something clicked, and made it so. What that "something" is? Can't say. But her work was a defining "click into place" moment for me.
And Di Prima guided me to other incredible female writers--Lorde, Giovanni, Woolf. Eventually I delved even further into the Beats--consuming Ginsberg and Jack, Burroughs. At 19 I dated a monster of an individual who adored Burroughs and Bukowski(of course that's who he adored). But Diane was the one who truly tripped my wire. And later, I would go to San Francisco and pick up "Women of the Beat Generation," and learn about a slew of incredible women in the scene. Elise Cowen, Joanne Kyger, Ruth Weiss. Voices I wanted and needed much, much more than Jack and the boys.
I'm so thankful for Diane Di Prima's existence, and her role in my growth as a writer. I've mentioned it before--I feel like I always mention it when a writer dies--when I writer passes away, it hits me differently. Shared craft? Shared mentality? I'm sure that's a part of it. And also being a writer, and now and then feeling that overwhelming urgency to write everything I can because no time is guaranteed to us. We will pass and there will probably be dozens of poems still under construction in our files and notbeooks. It frightens me and drives me. Make the art, say the thing, create now, now while we have the ability. Not even for any sort of audience, but for our own lightness and being. For our own living.
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