
Head-on war is the mistake we make
time after time
There is a way around it, way to outflank
technology, short circuit
“energy crisis”: retreat & silence
cunning
courage and love
Diane di Prima, Revolutionary Letter #58
Diane di Prima, famous beat poet, radical, anarchist, activist, died at age 86 on October 25, 2020. One of the better tributes to her was an interview with her daughter, Dominique di Prima, on CBC radio in Canada:
(Thanks to Robert Graham for sharing this).
Below, we share a selection from Diane di Prima’s Revolutionary Letters May 1968 – December 1971. The full collection of letters may be found here. A collection of her work entitled The Poetry Deal is also available online here.
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 instil fear, and inaction, ‘y ou on ly li ye 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
…
REVOLUTIONARY LETTER #4
Left to themselves people
grow their hair.
Left to themselves they
take off their shoe’s.
Left to themselves they make love
sleep easily
share blankets, dope & children
they are not lazy or afraid
they plant seeds, they smile, they
speak to one another. The word
coming into its own: touch of love;
on the brain, the ear.
//
We return with the sea, the tides
we return as often as leaves, as numerous
as grass, gentle, insistent, we remember
the way,
our babes toddle barefoot thru the cities of the universe.
…
REVOLUTIONARY LETTER #9
advocating
the overthrow of government is a crime
overthrowing it is something else
altogether, it is sometimes called
revolution
but don’t kid yourself: government
is not where it’s at: it’s only
a good place to start:
1. kill head of Dow Chemical
2. destroy plant
3. MAKE IT UNPROFITABLE FOR THEM to build again,
i.e., destroy the concept of money
as we know it, get rid of interest,
savings, inheritance
(Pound’s money, as dated coupons that come in the mail
to everyone, and are void in 30 days
is still a good idea)
or, let’s start with no money at all and invent it
if we need it
or, mimeograph it and everyone
print as much as they want
and see what happens
//
declare a moratorium on debt
the Continental Congress did
‘on all debts public and private’
& no one ‘owns’ the land
it can be held
for use, no man holding more
than he can work, himself and family working
//
let no one work for another
except for love, and what you make above your needs be given to the tribe a
Common- Wealth
//
None of us knows the answers, think about
these things.
The day will come when we have to know
the answers.
…
REVOLUTIONARY LETTER #12
the vortex of creation is the vortex of destruction
the vortex of artistic creation is the vortex of self destruction
the vortex of political creation is the vortex of flesh destruction
flesh is in the fire, it curls and terribly warps
fat is in the fire, it drips and sizzling sings
bones are in the fire
they crack tellingly in
subtle hieroglyphs of oracle
charcoal singed
the smell of your burning hair
for every revolutionary must at last will his own destruction
rooted as he is in the past he sets out to destroy
…
REVOLUTIONARY LETTER #19
(for The Poor People’s Campaign)
if what you want is jobs
for everyone, you are still the enemy,
you have not thought thru, clearly
what that means
//
if what you want is housing,
industry (GE. on the Navaho reservation)
a car for everyone, garage, refrigerator,
TV, more plumbing, scientific
freeways, you are still
the enemy, you have chosen
to sacrifice the planet for a few years of some
science fiction Utopia, if what you want
//
still is, or can be, schools
where all our kids are pushed into one shape, are taught
it’s better to be American’ than black
or Indian, or Jap, or PR, where Dick
and Jane become and are the dream, do you
look like Dick’s father, don’t you think your kid
secretly wishes you did
//
if what you want
is clinics where the AMA
can feed you pills to keep you weak, or sterile
shoot germs into your kids, while Mercke & Co
grows richer
if you want
free psychiatric help for everyone
so that the shrinks
pimps for this decadence, can make
it flower for us, if you want
if you still want a piece
a small piece of suburbia, green lawn
laid down by the square foot
color TV, whose radiant energy
kills brain cells, whose subliminal ads
brainwash your children, have taken over
your dreams
//
degrees from universities which are nothing
more than slum landlords, festering sinks
of lies, so you too can go forth
and lie to others on some greeny campus
//
THEN YOU ARE STILL
THE ENEMY, you are selling
yourself short, remember
you can have what you ask for, ask for
everything
…
REVOLUTIONARY LETTER #20
(for Huey Newton)
I will not rest
till men walk free & fearless on the earth each doing in the manner of his blood
& tribe, peaceful in the free air
//
till all can seek, unhindered the shape of their thought
no black cloud fear or guilt
between them & the sun, no babies burning young men locked away, no paper world
to come between ?esh & ?esh in human encounter
//
till the young women
come into their own, honored & fearless birthing strong sons
loving & dancing
//
till the young men can at last
lose some of their sternness, return
to young men’s thoughts, till laughter bounces o? our hills & ?lls
our plains
…
REVOLUTIONARY LETTER #23
A lack of faith is simply a lack of courage
one who says ‘I wish I could believe that’ means simply that he is coward, is pleased
to be spectator, on this scene where there are no spectators where all hands not actually working are working against as they lie idle, folded in lap, or holding up newspapers
full of lies, or wrapped around steering wheel, on one more pleasure trip
…
REVOLUTIONARY LETTER #26
‘DOES THE END
JUSTIFY THE MEANS?’ this is
process, there is no end, there are only means, each one
had better justify itself. To whom?
…
REVOLUTIONARY LETTER #41
Revolution: a turning, as the earth turns, among planets, as the sun
turns round some (darker) star, the galaxy describes a yin-yang spiral in the aether, we turn from dark to light, turn
faces of pain & fear, the dawn awash among them
…
REVOLUTIONARY LETTER #48
Be careful.
With what relief do we fall back
on the tale, so often told in revolutions that now we must
organize, obey the rules, so that later we can be free. It is the point
at which the revolution stops. To be carried forward later & in another country, this is
the pattern, but we can break the pattern
//
learn now we see
with all our skin, smell with our eyes too sense & sex are boundless & the call
is to be boundless in them, make the joy now, that we want, no shape
for space & time now but the shapes we will
…
REVOLUTIONARY LETTER #50
As soon as we submit
to a system based on causality, linear time
we submit, again, to the old values, plunge again into slavery. Be strong. We have the right to make
the universe we dream. No need to fear “science” grovelling apology for things as they are, ALL POWER
TO JOY. which will remake the world.
…
REVOLUTIONARY LETTER #54
It takes courage to say no
//
No to canned corn & instant
mashed potatoes. No to rice krispies. No to special K. No to margarine mono & di-glycerides, NSDA
for coloring, causing cancer. No to
white bread, bleached w/nerve gas (wonder bread). No to everything fried
in hardened oil w/silicates. No to once-so-delicious salami, now red w/sodium nitrate.
//
No to processed cheeses. No
no again to irradiated bacon, pink phosphorescent ham, dead plastic pasteurized milk. No to chocolate pudding
like grandma never made. No thanx
to coca-cola. No to freshness preserves, dough conditioners, no
potassium sorbate, no aluminum silicate, NO BHA, BHT, NO
di-ethyl-propyl-glycerate.
//
No more ice cream? not w/embalming ?uid. Goodbye potato chips, peanut butter, jelly, jolly white sugar! No more DES
all-American steaks or hamburgers either! Goodbye, frozen ?sh! (dipped & coated w/ aureomycin) Fried eggs over easy w/ hormones, penicillin & speed.
Goodbye, frozen ?sh! (dipped & coated w/ Carnation Instant Breakfast, Nestle’s Quik. Fritos, goodbye! your labels are very confusing.
//
All I can say
is what my daughter age six once said to me: “if I can’t pronounce it
maybe I shouldn’t eat it.” or, Dick Gregory
coming out of a 20-day fast:
“the people of America are controlled by the food they eat”
…
REVOLUTIONARY LETTER #63
Free Julian Beck Free Timothy Leary
Free seven million starving in Pakistan Free all political prisoners
Free Angela Davis Free Soledad brothers
Free Martin Sobel…… ’
Free Sacco & Vanzetti Free Big Bill Hayward Free Sitting Bull
Free Crazy Horse
Free all political prisoners Free Billy the Kid
Free Jesse James
Free all political prisoners Free Nathan Hale
Free Joan of Arc
Free Galileo & Bruno & Eckhart Free Jesus Christ:
Free Socrates
Free all political prisoners Free all political prisoners
All prisoners are political prisoners
Every pot smoker a political prisoner Every holdup man a political prisoner Every forger a political prisoner
Every angry kid who smashed a window a political prisoner Every whore, pimp, murderer, a political prisoner
Every pederast, dealer, drunk driver, burglar poacher, striker, strike breaker, rapist
Polar bear at San Francisco zoo, political prisoner
Ancient wise turtle at Detroit Aquarium, political prisoner Flamingoes dying in Phoenix tourist park, political prisoners Otters in Tucson Desert Museum, political prisoners
Elk in Wyoming grazing behind barbed wire, political prisoners Prairie dogs poisoned in New Mexico, war casualties
(Mass grave of Wyoming bald eagles, a battle?eld) Every kid in school a political prisoner
Every lawyer in his cubicle a political prisoner
Every doctor brainwashed by AMA a political prisoner Every housewife a political prisoner
Every teacher lying thru sad teeth a political prisoner Every Indian on reservation a political prisoner Every black man a political prisoner
Every faggot hiding in bar a political prisoner
Every junkie shooting up in John a political prisoner Every woman a political prisoner
Every woman a political prisoner
You are political prisoner locked in tense body You are political prisoner locked in sti? mind You are political prisoner locked to your parents You are political prisoner locked to your past Free yourself
Free yourself
I am political prisoner locked in anger habit I am political prisoner locked in greed habit I am political prisoner locked in fear habit
I am political prisoner locked in dull senses I am political prisoner locked in numb ?esh Free me
Free me
Help to free me Free yourself
Help to free me Free yourself Help to free me
Free Barry Goldwater Help to free me
Free Governor Wallace Free President Nixon. Free J Edgar Hoover Free them;
Free yourself Free them Free yourself Free yourself Free them Free yourself
Help to free me Free us DANCE
…
Diane di Prima reading …
…
FIRST DRAFT: POET LAUREATE
OATH OF OFFICE
for all poets everywhere
It is the poem I serve
luminous, through time
that celebration
of human breath, of melos
it is and always has been
the muse androgynous and ruthless
as any angel scattering words that need no
radio frequency no broadband
it is the light on the ocean here and
the sky in all its moods
luminous fog that wakes me up
to write, and something I call the
“Imp of the Short Poem”
it is the people of San Francisco
in their beauty
Bright luminous eyes looking out
from homeless faces
looking up
from gardening skateboarding singing
playing cards playing ball
barbecuing in their backyards
the folks in the Mission
the Excelsior in Bayview
Hunters Point
Japantown
North Beach
folks in the Sunset
working & idle
passionate angry silent
powerful in their silence
my friends and neighbors
parked at Ocean Beach, at Twin Peaks
in their cars
watching the sun go
down
my vow is:
to remind us all
to celebrate
there is no time
too desperate
no season
that is not
a Season of Song
(2009)
…
Biographical Note
Diane di Prima was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1934, a second generation American of Italian descent. Her maternal grandfather, Domenico Mallozzi, was an active anarchist, and associate of Carlo Tresca and Emma Goldman. She began writing at the age of seven, and committed herself to a life as a poet at the age of fourteen. For the past thirty-four years she has lived in northern California, raising ?ve children. In the late ’60s she took part in the political activities of the Diggers and is widely considered the most important woman writer of the Beat movement. (Cited from the collection of Revolutionary Letters).
…
The Allen Ginsburg Project website carries an extensive collection of material dedicated to Diane di Prima. An obituary has been posted on the Poetry Foundation website.