Hilarie reading Diane DiPrima's poem, "No Problem Party Poem"

I discovered Diane DiPrima my junior year of college, and was fascinated by her overt artistic devotion to conjuring a poetics around revolution and social change. I didn't have my students read her last semester, but I'm planning to assign some of her poems around the time we read Marge Piercy and June Jordan. I will likely assign these poems: "Rant" "For Pigpen" "Three Laments" and several of the "Loba" poems. Also, the poem I'm reading here: "No Problem Party Poem." DiPrima is fantastic! Like Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton, she writes about many taboo subjects, and in a way that throws convention into the fire. She's also known for writing stories about her life experience, including her most famous book, "Memoirs of a Beatnik."

Here is a quote from Diane DiPrima about the function of the poet in our world: "I think the poet is the last person who is still speaking the truth when no one else dares to. I think the poet is the first person to begin the shaping and visioning of the new forms and the new consciousness when no one else has begun to sense it; I think these are two of the most essential human functions."

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[shebschebella]

Nice. when I was 17 I was waiting on a greyhound bus in the middle of nowhere standing in some transfer junction I can't remember the name of now but I found a paper back book on the ground with the cover missing and so I sat down on my back pack and began to read. The book was Memoirs of a Beatnik.... my life has never been the same...lol, thanks for the memory.

[TheLeftHand77]

I've always favored this, My Lover's Eyes Are Nothing Like The Sun, and RANT.