Describe Epithetical Books Revolutionary Letters

Title:Revolutionary Letters
Author:Diane di Prima
Book Format:Paperback
Book Edition:Deluxe Edition
Pages:Pages: 160 pages
Published:May 1st 2007 by Last Gasp (first published 1971)
Categories:Poetry. Feminism. Politics. Womens
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Revolutionary Letters Paperback | Pages: 160 pages
Rating: 4.28 | 298 Users | 33 Reviews

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What to say...what to say.

Anything in prose seems lacking.

I spent a lot of time with this book of poems. I had been seeing references to it all over. I don't even remember hearing about it before this year.

This text feels uncannily close to us. And by us I mean those of you who know what I mean when I say us. Even the shorthand use of "yr" and "wd" is strikingly similar to how I txt. Let alone the nuances of the pieces revolutionary inclinations. The troublings, the poetics, the practicalities.

The name drops had me welling up in the first pages.

This may be magical thinking, but it's as if this was the best time in my life to read this. At no other point would it have resonated as well. A rekindling of affinity for the magical and the poetic coupled with all sorts of points of affinity.

The sort of 'western radical interpretation' of 'eastern spirituality' and so on would have at previous points had me turn away thinking it ignorant and 2nd hand. But what does come off as misunderstood never becomes so odious as to spoil the experience and I too have come to different understandings of what it means to engage with such things.

There is strategic advise about emergency supplies and terrain. There is wise quips about how it is to be done. There is pushing further to the root, condemnations of all civilization rather than just western. There are condemnations of scientism. There is anti-work sentiment. There is a practical and healthy aversion to leaders and rulers.

Reading it I had quite a few moments where I had to put it down to write down the ideas I had-- sometimes happening for dozens of pages in a row. It is a very generative, troubling, and yet also affirming collection of poems.

As much as it seems like it could have been written yesterday by our comrades, as much as it slips into messianic time, the poems are also very of the times they were written. Both in spirit, in what it addresses, and so on. At first some of the 'healthy living' and 'prepping for collapse' stuff rubbed me the wrong way, but eventually I started to see some perhaps neglected truths in it. Some redeeming characteristics of DIY, communes, free love, and so on.

This text places us in a continuum with rebel desert nomads, the people in the hills, in the swamps, in the ghettos, throughout time.

This text is for those who live or dream of living anarchically and against the law even if you cut out the explicit references to anarchists, which are already few.

There are beautiful lines and important points. Small details that stick out and nestle in my mind. There are sweeping passages that go on and take me in.

"someplace it isn't maybe
someplace it ends
some hills maybe
still free
but hungry
(eyes
blaze
over ancient guns"

Understanding that we die a million times as a recipe for living free from the inculcation of fear and inaction.

miner's lettuce

Tuna.

Kaliyuga.

Kill Yelabuga.

OMNIA SUNT COMMUNIA

all power to joy

cunning
courage+love

Present Books In Pursuance Of Revolutionary Letters

Original Title: Revolutionary Letters
ISBN: 0867196602 (ISBN13: 9780867196603)
Edition Language: English URL https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/diane-di-prima-revolutionary-letters

Rating Epithetical Books Revolutionary Letters
Ratings: 4.28 From 298 Users | 33 Reviews

Evaluation Epithetical Books Revolutionary Letters
An anarchist-flavored beat poetry book. Boy what a hard book to rate...First, the bad. Many of the letters could have been omitted, with overlapping and reiterated messages. I also just found myself disagreeing with some of the more confusing or naive statements; di Prima seems at times to put down things like science and mathematics -- I'm digging di Prima's preference for living simpler lives, but "theory of numbers" isn't what I'd call a toxic Western concept. I see where she's going with it,

What to say...what to say.Anything in prose seems lacking.I spent a lot of time with this book of poems. I had been seeing references to it all over. I don't even remember hearing about it before this year.This text feels uncannily close to us. And by us I mean those of you who know what I mean when I say us. Even the shorthand use of "yr" and "wd" is strikingly similar to how I txt. Let alone the nuances of the pieces revolutionary inclinations. The troublings, the poetics, the practicalities.

To reread again, right now.

One of my favourite poets. She is not the fringe of the beats. She is the centre. I also like some of the male beats of course. The best of the beats: Diane Di Prima, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg.

I was given this book by my High School English teacher--it pretty much stayed in my back pocket for years until it finally fell apart. I'm glad Last Gasp has finally reissued it.

Diane di Prima is an example of the type of poet I aspire to be. though she wasn't old enough to be involved in the beat movement, she really pulled from the beats for her style and that to me screams brilliance. One of the things I've always disliked about the beats was the obvious lack of female inclusion; With di Prima I found someone who really spoke to me on the level of the beats but had feminist views that reflected my need to be understood. I really love di Prima and poet Audre Lorde

di Prima's utopian vision is a brave, political and spiritual dare, her brashness is refreshing. She writes/speaks as personally and declaratively as Dorothy Parker. She celebrates selfhood in that beatnik-y way that female poets are always torn apart for and she does it well. This book is really a trove of gems filled to the brim with heartfelt politics. I love her and I read it over and over and over again.