Revolutionary poet Diane di Prima is gone, but her work and the positive energy she created and nurtured will live on. I count myself among the poets who consider her a heroic model for how to be a dissident artist and decent, loving human being.
Diane di Prima and Anne Waldman at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics
Summer Writing Program, July 1997 (photo by Christopher Luna)
Ten years after I met Diane di Prima at the Naropa Institute, I was thrilled to find her name on my list for the August Postcard Poetry Fest. Here is the postcard and poem I received from her:
It made me very nervous to write a spontaneous poem to one of my poetic elders. Here is the poem I wrote for her (and the collage postcard I created):
“Dustbowl Dirge” postcard sent to Diane di Prima, San Francisco, CA August 14, 2007:
EYE CATALYST for Diane di
Prima
we are charged with a
responsibility
whether we take on the role
of observer, critic,
priestess, or shaman
my painter friend is a former
Kansas ninja
and the reincarnation of
ninth-Century warrior
who smokes to quiet the
voices in his head
and
understands that to name
may
also be to destroy
he brings me finished
canvasses
which I am invited to amend
according to my liking
and I get nervous, my
Sharpie-holding hand trembling
with a sense of obligation
whatever I choose to add
must be right, it must be
worthy
must move
must add
rather than take away
we get trashed, laugh
and rub our beards
(mark of our status, for
some,
as revolutionary perverts)
we are dangerous
create word bombs
to dismantle capitalism
and undo the hatred in the
human heart
while plotting our respective
strategies
in the ongoing war against the imagination
A few years later, Erin Dengerink and I collaborated on an artwork based on this poem. She drew the figures in the foreground and cut the holes representing thought bubbles that I filled with collage. I also contributed the lettering featuring a few lines from EYE CATALYST:
EYE CATALYST for Diane di Prima
by Erin Dengerink and Christopher Luna
DETAIL
EYE CATALYST for Diane di Prima
by Erin Dengerink and Christopher Luna
Here is the postcard and poem I received from Diane di Prima in 2008:
“Poetics
of memory” postcard and poem ("Saving Janis") by Christopher Luna sent to Raul Sanchez, Seattle, WA on July 30,
2008 AND
Diane di Prima San
Francisco , CA on September 5, 2008:
SAVING JANIS
In
the photograph
Janis
looks like a hippie goddess
open, vulnerable
hair and beads
cascading over her nipples
hands crossed
in front of the flower
of her sex
Frame
the fallen queen
and
place her portrait
on
your bathroom wall.
Rendering
each morning
a
portal to another time.
If
you could you’d wrap your arms around her
whisper
sweet words of praise in her ear
and
when she closes her eyes to kiss you
hide
the half-finished bottle of Southern Comfort
Posted by Christopher Luna with love and respect for Diane di Prima
November 7, 2020
