Diane Di Prima Quotes & Sayings

The only war is the war against the imagination. — Diane Di Prima

I have just realized that the stakes are myself
I have no other
ransom money, nothing to break or barter but my life — Diane Di Prima

Maketa Groves has a strong, bright lyric gift. Her poems come out of music and are full of music. They bring us the sounds of the streets and the sounds of nature, and make us see once again that they are parts of the same song. She celebrates American lives as they are lived today: the mother scrubbing her kitchen floor at midnight, the drag-queens in the Tenderloin, the homeless woman knitting in the courtyard. This is poetry that relentlessly shows us the beauty in the world, with all its struggles and complexity, and demands that we go out to meet it with open hearts. — Diane Di Prima

Sweetheart, when you break thru you'll find a poet here, not quite what one would choose. — Diane Di Prima

In the fifties ... we were so busy being cool that we didn't know how to say the word love — Diane Di Prima

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. — Diane Di Prima

There are as many kinds of kisses as there are people on earth, as there are permutations and combinations of those people. No two people kiss alike - no two people fuck alike - but somehow the kiss is more personal, more individualized than the fuck. — Diane Di Prima

The best thing to do with a mimeograph is to drop it from a five story window, on the head of a cop — Diane Di Prima

More or Less Love Poems #11:
No babe
We'd never
Swing together but
the syncopation
would be something wild — Diane Di Prima

It is still news to her that passion
could steer her wrong
though she went down, a thousand times
strung out
across railroad tracks, off bridges
under cars, or stiff
glass bottle still in hand, hair soft
on greasy pillows, still it is
news she cannot follow love (his
burning footsteps in blue crystal
snow) & still
come out all right. — Diane Di Prima

MY LADY, WE ARE BEING HUNTED

possibility we are poisoned, possibility
there is no meat on the table, not even bait
in the trap. possibility they've already bought our parents.
possibility we'll run out of water; the salt marsh
is rising; we are followed; they've clocked our meeting
possibility this is an ambush
possibility they are downwind of us,
they've photographed the house, tattooed the children
possibility they've marked the bread with hexes
possibility the moon is theirs & netted
possibility the web of idea is upon us.
possibility we've lost this particular rumble.

who stole the sword we bedded; followed the fork
in the road where we left no footprints
who swallowed yr amber, lady, while we slept

possibility we can hide here indefinitely
possibility that we should cut & run — Diane Di Prima