![\"\"](\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2020\/10\/28\/obituaries\/28Diprima2\/merlin_179097651_1ac14e35-7fc1-4281-819b-a9e0d594f095-jumbo.jpg?quality=90&auto=webp\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
A NY Times Book section obituary Diane di Prima, Poet of the Beat Era and Beyond, Dies at 86\u00a0<\/a> and an Associated Press obituary<\/a> were published today, 10\/28\/2020. Ms. di Prima often spoke of the influence of her maternal grandfather, Domenico Mallozzi, a tailor and ardent anarchist who had immigrated from Italy. He was, she wrote in her 2001 memoir, \u201cregarded somewhat as a family treasure: a powerful and erratic kind of lightning generator, a kind of Tesla experiment, we for some reason kept in the house.\u201d<\/p>\n Her collection \u201cRevolutionary Letters\u201d (she wrote a series of poems under that title) included a poem about him, \u201cApril Fool Birthday Poem for Grandpa,\u201d that began this way:<\/p>\n Today is your Yet, she wrote, her maternal grandmother, Antoinette, and the other women in the household where she grew up taught her the practicalities of survival. \u201cIt was at my grandmother\u2019s side,\u201d she wrote, \u201cin that scrubbed and waxed apartment, that I received my first communications about the specialness and the relative uselessness of men.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n and<\/p>\n One of Ms. di Prima\u2019s best-loved poems, written in 1957 for her first child, Jeanne, is called \u201cSong for Baby-o, Unborn\u201d:<\/p>\n Sweetheart, A NY Times Book section obituary Diane di Prima, Poet of the Beat Era and Beyond, Dies at 86\u00a0 and an Associated Press obituary were published today, 10\/28\/2020. From the New York Times: Ms. di Prima often spoke of the influence of her maternal grandfather, Domenico Mallozzi, a tailor and ardent anarchist who had immigrated … [Read more…]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6,7,8,10,2148,13,14,16,17,18],"tags":[2917,2919,2915,2920,2926,2924,2923,2928,2921,2918,2925,2922,2916,1488,2927],"class_list":{"0":"entry","1":"post","2":"publish","3":"author-sergneri","4":"post-4287","6":"format-standard","7":"category-california-history","8":"category-ethical-and-green-living","9":"category-faits-divers","10":"category-feminism","11":"category-flying","12":"category-obituaries","13":"category-politics","14":"category-racism","15":"category-sea-stories","16":"category-thinking-about","17":"category-this-day-in-history","18":"post_tag-activism","19":"post_tag-autobiographical","20":"post_tag-beat-era","21":"post_tag-ezra-pound","22":"post_tag-greenwich-village","23":"post_tag-heresies","24":"post_tag-hidden-religion","25":"post_tag-liberation-news-service","26":"post_tag-loba","27":"post_tag-memoirs-of-a-beatnik","28":"post_tag-poet-laureate-of-san-francisco","29":"post_tag-poetics-program","30":"post_tag-poetry","31":"post_tag-san-francisco","32":"post_tag-the-diggers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sergneri.net\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sergneri.net\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sergneri.net\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sergneri.net\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sergneri.net\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4287"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.sergneri.net\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4287\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4291,"href":"https:\/\/www.sergneri.net\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4287\/revisions\/4291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sergneri.net\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sergneri.net\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sergneri.net\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nFrom the New York Times:<\/p>\n
\n birthday and I have tried
\n writing these things before,
\n but now
\n in the gathering madness, I want to
\n thank you
\n for telling me what to expect
\n for pulling
\n no punches, back there in that scrubbed Bronx parlor<\/em><\/p>\n
\n when you break thru
\n you\u2019ll find
\n a poet here
\n not quite what one would choose.
\n I won\u2019t promise
\n you\u2019ll never go hungry
\n or that you won\u2019t be sad
\n on this gutted
\n breaking
\n globe
\n but I can show you
\n baby
\n enough to love
\n to break your heart
\n forever.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"