Amerarcana 2010

Diane di Prima was an American poet, artist, author, and teacher born on August 6, 1934 in Brooklyn, New York. She studied at Swarthmore College but dropped out. She spent the late 1950s and early 1960s in Manhattan, involved in the Beat movement. She was a co-founder of Poets Press and the New York Poets Theatre. She was also co-editor of the literary magazine, the Floating Bear. In the late 60s she moved to California. She wrote over forty books. Her first book was published in 1958, This Kind of Bird Flies Backwards. Some of her other books include Memoirs of a Beatnik; Pieces of a Song: Selected Poems; Loba; Recollections of My Life as a Woman: The New York Years; Revolutionary Letters and The Poetry Deal. Diane di Prima was named San Francisco poet laureate in 2009 and 2011. She died on October 25, 2020 in San Francisco at the age of 86.

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