Vox Populi
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Diane di Prima: Revolutionary Letters
REVOLUTIONARY LETTER #1
I have just realized that the stakes are myself
I have no other
ransom money, nothing to break or barter but my life
my spirit measured out, in bits, spread over
the roulette table, I recoup what I can
nothing else to shove under the nose of the maitre de jeu
nothing to thrust out the window, no white flag
this flesh all I have to offer, to make the play with
this immediate head, what it comes up with, my move
as we slither over this go board, stepping always
(we hope) between the lines
~
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 die
a 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
//
Tribe
an organism, one flesh, breathing joy as the stars
breathe destiny down on us, get
going, join hands, see to business, thousands of sons
will see to it when you fall, you will grow
a thousand times in the bellies of your sisters
~~~~
From Revolutionary Letters, May 1968-December 1971 by Diane di Prima. Third Edition (City Lights, 1971). Long out of print, the complete text of 63 poems is now available at the website The Anarchist Library.
Thanks to Joanne Durham for suggesting this post.
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“get up, put on your shoes, get
started, someone will finish”
Amen.
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Yes. Di Prima shows us the right attitude when we are faced with an authoritarian government.
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Worthy of more exploration. Exciting. Never knew these existed.
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Yes. An interesting discovery.
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I found the book in Italian, I think I will publish some letters, they are so fascinating and exciting, they are of a purity that now no longer exists. Thank you very much (WordPress had deleted you from the people I follow and I didn’t get your articles anymore)
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Marina, you are subscribed, so I don’t know why you aren’t getting the posts. Sorry.
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WordPress is to blame. Now I have changed some settings and the posts should arrive. Thank you very much.
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Glad you’ve solved the problem, Marina!
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This is visceral, elemental stuff. I wasn’t any sort of insider to the revolution, just a selfish, (because I was shy and centered in a very rural world) teenager at the time, but I now understand these terms, and judge things to be at least as awful as they were. None of us have ever not been complicit in techno-industrial human culture. Until the scoundrels are gotten rid of, everyone remains at fault.
It’s beautifully passionate writing!
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When I went to my first antiwar protest in 1970, I was sixteen and had the political consciousness of a Boston terrier. A stoned Boston terrier. The Beats and the Hippies taught us to care about distant wars and the dying earth. I’ll always be grateful to them.
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Memories of the DiPrima Era (with protest centered on the Vietnam War), along with the birth of a new wave of Feminism she helped inspire, remind me of my roomate Noel, and the brave, risky, Guerilla Theater he performed.
Now the performative acts in this time of chaos mostly emanate from the White House, which has become a Theater Troop rather than a center of governance. Note the meeting in the White House, where Zelensky met Trump and Vance, hoping for productive dialogue, but instead was humiliated by Trump’s performance, shifting attention from seriousness to “put downs” and denigration. Hard to counter these sorts of fascistic media stars. But it is time.
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Ah, thanks for clarifying the Trump method, Jim.
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every gesture of his is stagecraft. A sort of visceral poetry….
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I was lucky enough to be a colleague of Diane’s in the very first session at Naropa Institute and later privileged to invite her for a reading at Dartmouth. A generous soul, as these poems suggest; thanks for refreshing our memories of her!
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Thanks, Syd. I never met her, but I admire her vision and presence that continue even today.
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Just read several of the poems; they are addictive as they refresh for me memories of the late’ ’60s and ’70s. They feel, in some respects, as relevant now as then. It seems to me, revolution doesn’t require you to be a “hippie” or own guns, do drugs or condemn all aspects of our current culture but there must be an awareness, a concern for what is happening to us. It seems to me, that awareness is awakening for some who have never considered it before.
I’ve started letting my beard grow out. I may cancel my next haircut appointment, too, but no drugs.! Fight on!
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Thanks, Leo. The beats and the hippies were right about a lot of things.
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