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Revolutionary Letters
This edition is the new volume of di Prima's classic Revolutionary Letters. There are some new pieces added in, and new edits on older pieces, done by the author. A new expanded edition of Loba (twice as long as the 1978 Wingbow Press edition) was published in the Penguin Poets series in August 1998. Her autobiographical memoir, Recollections of My Life as a Woman, was published by Viking in April 2001.
160 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1971
About the author
Diane di Prima
115 books238 followersDiane di Prima was an American poet and member of the Beat Generation. She was San Francisco’s poet laureate from 2009 to 2011.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 155 reviews
January 19, 2019
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
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
October 23, 2023
after the second reading: perfect for when you need an intense boost of any kind.
wow, issues di Prima wrote about decades ago, are more than prescient today. every letter is a bold encouragement to think and reconsider and act to change our world for the better. every letter is radical and powerful. it's a challenging reading experience, but an extremely valuable one!
wow, issues di Prima wrote about decades ago, are more than prescient today. every letter is a bold encouragement to think and reconsider and act to change our world for the better. every letter is radical and powerful. it's a challenging reading experience, but an extremely valuable one!
January 26, 2025
3,5
Some of these poems were a bit outdated, in the sense of being soaked by the most naieve adaptation of hippy idealism/tribalism, but other poems were still resounding insights that could apply today and even comfort & inspire us in our daily struggle (f.e. against the current White House fascist freak show)
Some of these poems were a bit outdated, in the sense of being soaked by the most naieve adaptation of hippy idealism/tribalism, but other poems were still resounding insights that could apply today and even comfort & inspire us in our daily struggle (f.e. against the current White House fascist freak show)
October 9, 2021
I find poetry collections hard to review. I definitely know if I think they're good or not. But parsing what makes them good and finding the specifics and language to explain that to other readers can feel next to impossible.
I've been reading Diane di Prima's poems since the early 80s and always find them compelling. Her language pulls readers along like a torrent during flood season: rapidly and totally. Or maybe I should say I consume her writing the way I consume baklava: insatiably and much too quickly.
The Revolutionary Letters was originally published by City Lights fifty years ago. This new edition makes it clear that, despite the distance in time, di Prima is still speaking to readers in bold language that forces us to reexamine the nature of our daily existence, the distance between our world and a world with justice.
If you are the sort of person who thinks about things, who cares about true and complicated fairness, who wrestles with ideas, who refuses to give up the dream of a better world, read this book. And reread it. Let it sweep you along, then return to it to savor each word.
I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via Edelweiss; the opinions are my own.
I've been reading Diane di Prima's poems since the early 80s and always find them compelling. Her language pulls readers along like a torrent during flood season: rapidly and totally. Or maybe I should say I consume her writing the way I consume baklava: insatiably and much too quickly.
The Revolutionary Letters was originally published by City Lights fifty years ago. This new edition makes it clear that, despite the distance in time, di Prima is still speaking to readers in bold language that forces us to reexamine the nature of our daily existence, the distance between our world and a world with justice.
If you are the sort of person who thinks about things, who cares about true and complicated fairness, who wrestles with ideas, who refuses to give up the dream of a better world, read this book. And reread it. Let it sweep you along, then return to it to savor each word.
I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via Edelweiss; the opinions are my own.
February 19, 2014
Diane di Prima’s late-60s/early-70s revolutionary fervor with her vision of continuance is shown in these Rilke’s-to-a-Young-poet-like Letters. Instead of a blurbed diary of Look What I Did, it is written to those who want to be prepared for the clarion call of the imminent day’s struggle. It reads nearly as well today as it would have upon its initial release.
In this, the second edition, there are 49 brief letters exhorting the reader and would-be revolutionary on the likely-overlooked aspects of revolution that an individual encounters on the ground. Everything from filling a bathtub with water to remembering who the true enemies are of The People.
It’s a quick read that would work well to revisit every once in a while – it’d be a nice addition to a 72-hour kit -- since you never know when the times’ll come a-changin’.
In this, the second edition, there are 49 brief letters exhorting the reader and would-be revolutionary on the likely-overlooked aspects of revolution that an individual encounters on the ground. Everything from filling a bathtub with water to remembering who the true enemies are of The People.
It’s a quick read that would work well to revisit every once in a while – it’d be a nice addition to a 72-hour kit -- since you never know when the times’ll come a-changin’.
September 26, 2021
my blurb for the book(!):
"How do 'we' keep fighting? There is no one way, but sometimes you think about lines in Diane di Prima's Revolutionary Letters. Di Prima's 'letters' feel like they were written to the all of you that always is somewhere coming together. They remind you that you are a part of something, that as sure as you have enemies who want things like jobs, you have friends who want everything. The new letters in this expanded edition continue di Prima's tradition of telling you things you need to know--like 'you have only / so much / ammunition' & how a poem can matter as 'the memory / of the poem / tak[es] root in / thousands / of minds.' & here you thought this classic couldn't get any better."
"How do 'we' keep fighting? There is no one way, but sometimes you think about lines in Diane di Prima's Revolutionary Letters. Di Prima's 'letters' feel like they were written to the all of you that always is somewhere coming together. They remind you that you are a part of something, that as sure as you have enemies who want things like jobs, you have friends who want everything. The new letters in this expanded edition continue di Prima's tradition of telling you things you need to know--like 'you have only / so much / ammunition' & how a poem can matter as 'the memory / of the poem / tak[es] root in / thousands / of minds.' & here you thought this classic couldn't get any better."
June 15, 2013
REVOLUTIONARY LETTERS NO. 4
Left to themselves people
grow their hair.
Left to themselves they
take off their shoes.
Left to themselves they make love
sleep easily
share blankets, dope & children
they are not lazy or afraid
they plant seeds, they smile, they
speak to one another. The word
coming into its own: touch of love
on the brain, the ear.
We return with the sea, the tides
We return as often as leaves, as numerous
as grass, gentle, insistent, we remember
the way,
our babes toddle barefoot thru the cities of the universe.
---
Ms. di Prima, your words make my heart fly singing. Thank you thank you thank you from the bottom of my pseudo-revolutionary heart.
Left to themselves people
grow their hair.
Left to themselves they
take off their shoes.
Left to themselves they make love
sleep easily
share blankets, dope & children
they are not lazy or afraid
they plant seeds, they smile, they
speak to one another. The word
coming into its own: touch of love
on the brain, the ear.
We return with the sea, the tides
We return as often as leaves, as numerous
as grass, gentle, insistent, we remember
the way,
our babes toddle barefoot thru the cities of the universe.
---
Ms. di Prima, your words make my heart fly singing. Thank you thank you thank you from the bottom of my pseudo-revolutionary heart.
January 29, 2025
even the poorest of us will have to give up something to live free
Read
May 23, 2024Reactionary bizarre & unscrupulous politics (rabbit hunting good, vaccines bad, acid good, gardening bad, "Aborigines" and "Africans" good, universities bad, armed resistance good .. ? opposed to the notion of regret, opposed to "not only Western civilization, but civilization itself" .. ? ?) .. but she had the spirit. I'm thinking of a phrase in French which I've heard to describe dancers - "il y a le soufflé", literally "there is the breath." Blunt, daring, radiant, radical. Holding her own against the endless misogyny of her Beat contemporaries and holding the line against the emergent life-eating machine of the American military-industrial complex (did you know the Kent state massacre actually garnered Nixon public favor? that 58% of the public believed the responsibility for the deaths lay with the demonstrators??!). "It is better to lose and win than win and be defeated." Rest in power.
January 25, 2022
I really didn't like this collection. The lack of intersectionality and ableism, the juvenile simplicity at thinking one can fight their way through systemic problems and basically live on love and fury combined with the lack of musicality really bothered me. There were a few glimpses of a higher poetic caliber peeking out here and there, but mostly the poems felt unfinished and sophomoric. (which, maybe they were? maybe that's part of reading a poet's older work?) It is what it is. The anniversary edition I bought is bound beautifully, though.
May 7, 2016
2, 7, 27, 48, 49, 51, 66
August 27, 2025
The best case anyone has put forth for anarchism and degrowth. Provocative and impactful poetry and a stunning contribution to the Italian radical tradition. Di Prima dares to imagine a radically different world from our own, and it doesn't really matter what is feasible or what isn't; we are better for having poets that really do ruthlessly criticize all that exists.
From Letter #19:
if what you want is housing,
industry (G.E. on the Navaho reservation)
a car for everyone, garage, refrigerator,
TV, more plumbing, scientific
freeways, you are still
the enemy, you have chosen
to sacrifice the planet for a few years of some
science fiction Utopia, if what you want
Reminiscent of the novel Vogliamo Tutto (We Want Everything), the last stanza of this poem reads:
THEN YOU ARE STILL
THE ENEMY, you are selling
yourself short, remember
you can have what you ask for, ask for
everything
Kudos to the anonymous publishers of the PDF copy I read, which they explicitly noted was published "without permission [...]. Anti-profit, anti-copyright."
From Letter #19:
if what you want is housing,
industry (G.E. on the Navaho reservation)
a car for everyone, garage, refrigerator,
TV, more plumbing, scientific
freeways, you are still
the enemy, you have chosen
to sacrifice the planet for a few years of some
science fiction Utopia, if what you want
Reminiscent of the novel Vogliamo Tutto (We Want Everything), the last stanza of this poem reads:
THEN YOU ARE STILL
THE ENEMY, you are selling
yourself short, remember
you can have what you ask for, ask for
everything
Kudos to the anonymous publishers of the PDF copy I read, which they explicitly noted was published "without permission [...]. Anti-profit, anti-copyright."
January 17, 2024
Kan absolut inte recensera poesi men det här var så bra?? Vardagliga teman men också världsomspännande och revolutionärt. Fantastiskt rent språkligt. Dikter som publicerats i egengjorda zines och på stora förlag, lästs upp under demonstrationer och sena kvällar. Min dumma lilla kärlek för beat-generationen fortsätter leverera.
Revolutionary letter #27
How much
can we afford to lose, before we win, can we
cut hair, or give up drugs, take
job, join Minute Men, marry, wear their clothes
play bingo, what
can we stomach, how soon
does it leave its mark, can we
living straight in a straight part of town still see
our people, can we live
if we don’t see our people? ‘It is better
to lose & win, than win & be
defeated’ sd Gertrude Stein, which wd you
choose?
Revolutionary letter #27
How much
can we afford to lose, before we win, can we
cut hair, or give up drugs, take
job, join Minute Men, marry, wear their clothes
play bingo, what
can we stomach, how soon
does it leave its mark, can we
living straight in a straight part of town still see
our people, can we live
if we don’t see our people? ‘It is better
to lose & win, than win & be
defeated’ sd Gertrude Stein, which wd you
choose?
December 29, 2025
Afghan war, AIDS, Vietnam war, Sacco and Vanzetti ‘27, 9/11, gulf war ‘91, Buddhist nun burning, JFK assassination, Monroe’s suicide, “halfway around the world the bombs are dropping”.
Grandpa was an anarchist, Di Prima anarchoprimitivist. Too late to live pre-war and just in time to fight it. Poetry as revolution. Buddhism, LSD, and sexual liberation. Revolutionary letters #1-93, 1968-2003.
Di Prima is a legend, seriously.
Grandpa was an anarchist, Di Prima anarchoprimitivist. Too late to live pre-war and just in time to fight it. Poetry as revolution. Buddhism, LSD, and sexual liberation. Revolutionary letters #1-93, 1968-2003.
Di Prima is a legend, seriously.
April 12, 2023
Urgent.
December 28, 2024
Whilst some of these poems have aged, many transcend their age and provide not only a history of revolution, but also a practical guide to revolt
August 8, 2021
Day 7 of 31 - #TheSealeyChallenge 2021
Read
August 8, 2025this book was read aloud to me in bushwick in the middle of the fire
May 10, 2022
I liked these poems much better when revisiting them in the context of a huge amount of reading about the Sixties. Like Adrienne Rich, June Jordan, Denise Levertov, and Audre Lorde--as well as her contemporaries Amiri Baraka and Allen Ginsberg--di Prima sought to draw together the multiple dimensions of life-political, psychological, sexual, creative. The directness of her voice sometimes feels like slogan, but the slogans feel increasingly needed as the patterns of oppression she identified continue to play out.
August 3, 2017
all the fingers of the night point home to us
- #70
- #70
July 18, 2024
"The women are lying down
in front of the bulldozers
sent to destroy
the last of the olive groves."
(REVOLUTIONARY LETTER #90)
*
"not killing a few white men will bring
back power, not killing all the white men, but killing
the white man in each of us, killing the desire
for brocade, for gold, for champagne brandy, which sends
people out of the sun and out of their lives to create
COMMODITY for our pleasure, what claim
do we have, can we make, on another’s time, another’s
life blood, show me
a city which does not consume the air and water
for miles around it"
(REVOLUTIONARY LETTER #32)
*
"halfway around the world the bombs are falling
Do not think to correct this by refusing to read.
It happens as you put down the paper, head for the door.
The ozone reaches the point of no-return
the butterflies bellyflop, the last firefly, etc.
Do not think to correct this by reading.
The bombs burst the small skull of an Arab infant the
silky black hair is stuck to your hands with brains.
W/bits of blood. There is less shrieking than you would
expect
a soft silence. The silence of the poor, those who could not
afford to leave. Drop flowers on them from yr mind, why
don’t you? ‘I guess we’ll have to stay and take our
chances.’
They die so silently even as we speak
Black eyes of children seek eyes of the dying mother
bricks fall dirt spurts like fountains in the streets.
In the time you fill a cup they die of thirst.
In the time it takes to turn off the radio.
Not past, not future"
(REVOLUTIONARY LETTER #78)
*
"may it continue
without police
may it continue
without prisons
may it continue
without hospitals, death medicine : flu & flu vaccine
may it continue
without madhouses, marriage, highschools that are prisons
may it continue
without empire
may it continue
in sisterhood
may it continue
thru the wars to come
may it continue
in brotherhood
may it continue
tho the earth seem lost
may it continue
thru exile & silence
may it continue
with cunning & love
may it continue
as woman continues
may it continue
as breath continues
may it continue
as stars continue
may it continue
may the wind deal kindly w/us
may the fire remember our names
may springs flow, rain fall again
may the land grow green, may it swallow our mistakes"
(REVOLUTIONARY LETTER #68)
in front of the bulldozers
sent to destroy
the last of the olive groves."
(REVOLUTIONARY LETTER #90)
*
"not killing a few white men will bring
back power, not killing all the white men, but killing
the white man in each of us, killing the desire
for brocade, for gold, for champagne brandy, which sends
people out of the sun and out of their lives to create
COMMODITY for our pleasure, what claim
do we have, can we make, on another’s time, another’s
life blood, show me
a city which does not consume the air and water
for miles around it"
(REVOLUTIONARY LETTER #32)
*
"halfway around the world the bombs are falling
Do not think to correct this by refusing to read.
It happens as you put down the paper, head for the door.
The ozone reaches the point of no-return
the butterflies bellyflop, the last firefly, etc.
Do not think to correct this by reading.
The bombs burst the small skull of an Arab infant the
silky black hair is stuck to your hands with brains.
W/bits of blood. There is less shrieking than you would
expect
a soft silence. The silence of the poor, those who could not
afford to leave. Drop flowers on them from yr mind, why
don’t you? ‘I guess we’ll have to stay and take our
chances.’
They die so silently even as we speak
Black eyes of children seek eyes of the dying mother
bricks fall dirt spurts like fountains in the streets.
In the time you fill a cup they die of thirst.
In the time it takes to turn off the radio.
Not past, not future"
(REVOLUTIONARY LETTER #78)
*
"may it continue
without police
may it continue
without prisons
may it continue
without hospitals, death medicine : flu & flu vaccine
may it continue
without madhouses, marriage, highschools that are prisons
may it continue
without empire
may it continue
in sisterhood
may it continue
thru the wars to come
may it continue
in brotherhood
may it continue
tho the earth seem lost
may it continue
thru exile & silence
may it continue
with cunning & love
may it continue
as woman continues
may it continue
as breath continues
may it continue
as stars continue
may it continue
may the wind deal kindly w/us
may the fire remember our names
may springs flow, rain fall again
may the land grow green, may it swallow our mistakes"
(REVOLUTIONARY LETTER #68)
December 5, 2020
Diane di Prima died October 25, 2020 in San Francisco. These poems originating in the 60's but some few added as late as in the 2000's, you couldn't just label them one of the great "beat" or "protest" or "feminist"or whatever style of books or "new" since they are based in the origins of poems. From the vantage point of the upside down conspiracy, right-wing world we live in now, her seeming radicalism is like being centrist. also musical, beautiful, coherent. It's sad to imagine a time without such a person alive in it. Among the late incantatory letters #93 is outstanding, written on Memorial Day
Remember Sacco & Vanzetti
Remember Haymarket
Remember John Brown
Remember slave revolts
Remember Malcolm
Remember Paracelsus....
Remember to take yr life back into yr hands
It's Memorial Day, remember
what you love
& do it. Don't wait
Remember life hangs by a thread ---
anybody's life...
Remember Sacco & Vanzetti
Remember Haymarket
Remember John Brown
Remember slave revolts
Remember Malcolm
Remember Paracelsus....
Remember to take yr life back into yr hands
It's Memorial Day, remember
what you love
& do it. Don't wait
Remember life hangs by a thread ---
anybody's life...
Read
July 22, 2023Provocative collection. Really inspired by it. Can't get over this credibly-sourced fact form Wikipedia: "She attended academically elite Hunter College High School where she became part of a small group of friends including classmate Audre Lorde who formed a sort of Dead Poets Society calling themselves 'the Branded.' They cut class to roam the city, hanging out in bookstores, sharing their own poetry and holding séances for dead poets."
Revolutionary Letter #53
San Francisco Note
"I think I'll stay on this / earthquake fault near this / still-active volcano in this / armed fortress facing a / dying ocean & / covered w/ dirt / while the / streets burn up & the / rocks fly & pepper gas / lays us out / cause / that's where's my friends are, / you bastards, not that / you know what that means / Ain't gonna cop to it, ain't gonna / be scared no more, we all / know the same songs, mushrooms, butterflies / we all / have the same babies, dig it / the woods are big."
Revolutionary Letter #53
San Francisco Note
"I think I'll stay on this / earthquake fault near this / still-active volcano in this / armed fortress facing a / dying ocean & / covered w/ dirt / while the / streets burn up & the / rocks fly & pepper gas / lays us out / cause / that's where's my friends are, / you bastards, not that / you know what that means / Ain't gonna cop to it, ain't gonna / be scared no more, we all / know the same songs, mushrooms, butterflies / we all / have the same babies, dig it / the woods are big."
March 23, 2025
amazing. still so relevant
some of my favourite passages/lines
'does it leave its mark, can we/living straight in a straight part of town still see/our people, can we live/if we don't see our people?' (from RL#27)
'TO BE FREE we've got to be free of/any idea of freedom./Today the State Dept lifted the ban on/travel to China; and closed/Meritt College.' (RL#47)
'With what relief do we fall back on/the tale, so often told in revolutions/that now we must/organize, obey the rules, so that later/we can be free. It is the point/at which the revolution stops. To be carried forward/later & in another country, this is/the pattern, but we can break the pattern' (from RL#48)
'over & over we look for/the picture in the cloth' (from RL#57)
'we sit on shifting ground/at the edge of this ocean/"as far from Europe as you can get"/& watch the hills flicker like dreamskin' (fromRL #57)
some of my favourite passages/lines
'does it leave its mark, can we/living straight in a straight part of town still see/our people, can we live/if we don't see our people?' (from RL#27)
'TO BE FREE we've got to be free of/any idea of freedom./Today the State Dept lifted the ban on/travel to China; and closed/Meritt College.' (RL#47)
'With what relief do we fall back on/the tale, so often told in revolutions/that now we must/organize, obey the rules, so that later/we can be free. It is the point/at which the revolution stops. To be carried forward/later & in another country, this is/the pattern, but we can break the pattern' (from RL#48)
'over & over we look for/the picture in the cloth' (from RL#57)
'we sit on shifting ground/at the edge of this ocean/"as far from Europe as you can get"/& watch the hills flicker like dreamskin' (fromRL #57)
March 16, 2026
5 stars as an extremely demanding thought exercise, a handbook to what could be beyond the revolution and the transformation of imagination it will take to get there. This book says “there should be no Amazon and no western canon and no electrical grid and no nuclear weapons and no advertising and no hospitals and no colleges” and, like reading a religious text, it’s up to you to say “yes, no, yes, yes, no,” and the no-s help you work out what you want and believe as much as the yes-s do. Keith and I talked about this book for a loooooong time. You can also see the MAHA movement begin in real time over the course of this book which made me laaauuugh until it didn’t
May 2, 2026
favorites: 31, 50, 58, 69, 70, 71, 74, 83, 91
extremely frustratingly anti-science at many points, occasionally dated, and sometimes falls into the trap that di Prima herself identifies in #77 ("Awkward Song on the Eve of War"): "This is a prose poem and it is didactic"
but when she's good she's really good (by which I mean so lyrical, so moving as to be truly incantatory)
extremely frustratingly anti-science at many points, occasionally dated, and sometimes falls into the trap that di Prima herself identifies in #77 ("Awkward Song on the Eve of War"): "This is a prose poem and it is didactic"
but when she's good she's really good (by which I mean so lyrical, so moving as to be truly incantatory)
February 7, 2022
I received this as a gift, opened it and landed on page 76: Revolutionary Letter #62: "Take a good look/ at history (the American myth)/ check sell out/ of revolution by the founding fathers"
This speaks to me right now!
I like the older stuff, filled with energy and optimism that still speaks to us today.
This speaks to me right now!
I like the older stuff, filled with energy and optimism that still speaks to us today.
May 26, 2026
Reprise :
There is nothing we have been that we will be
None of the myths suffices.
Let us read each other’s maps at the foot of the Tree
Where the stream of Song moves out in all directions.
Read
November 22, 2022ALL POWER TO JOY
December 11, 2023
i read Revolutionary Letters at the end of every year and its always always exactly what i need
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