Spring and Autumn Annals: A Celebration of the Seasons for Freddie

by Diane di Prima, Ammiel Alcalay (Foreword)

"The book is a treasure. &; Diane di Prima is one of the greatest writers of her generation, and this book offers a window into its lives."&; Chris Kraus "Diane Di Prima's Spring and Autumn Annals arrives as a long-lost charm of illuminated meditations to love, life, death, eros and selflessness. An essential 1960s text of visionary rapaciousness.&;&; Thurston Moore "[Freddie Herko] wished for a third love before he died; and what a love is in this book's beholding, saying, and release. Di Prima's dancing narrative, propelled and circling at the speed of thought, picking up every name and detailed perception as a rolling tide, fills me with gratitude for the truth of her eye. Nothing gets past it, not even the 'ballet slippers letting in the snow.'"&; Ana Božicevic "A masterpiece of literary reflection, as quest to archive her dancer friend's life, to make art at all costs and the price dearly paid. &; di Prima&;s poetic memoir of the artist journey is a triumph. A must read and reread for years to come."&; Karen Finley "A Beat poet's journal following the suicide of her closest friend encompasses many seasons and cycles of life and death. &; With evocative detail and introspective insight, she writes of that loss and the feeling of being turned loose, occasionally unmoored, struggling to create art through years of living in barely habitable apartments. &; A useful document for scholars of the Beat generation."&; Kirkus Reviews In the autumn of 1964, Diane di Prima was a young poet living in New York when her dearest friend, dancer, choreographer, and Warhol Factory member, Freddie Herko, leapt from the window of a Greenwich Village apartment to a sudden, dramatic, and tragic death at the age of 29. In her shock and grief, di Prima began a daily practice of writing to Freddie. For a year, she would go to her study each day, light a stick of incense, and type furiously until it burned itself out. Later, di Prima would take up this stream-of-consciousness manuscript and make it into something for others to read. The result is an eloquent ode to her friend; to the constellation of writers, artists, and revolutionaries who made up their community; and to the chaos and struggle of lives lived fully in the pursuit of personal and artistic goals while the world around them hurtles toward changes that will soon upend everything. The narrative ranges over the decade from 1954&;the year di Prima and Herko first met&;to 1965, with occasional forays into di Prima's memories of growing up in Brooklyn. Lyrical, elegant, and nakedly honest, Spring and Autumn Annals is a moving tribute to a friendship, and to the extraordinary innovation and accomplishments of the period. Masterfully observed and passionately recorded, it offers a uniquely American portrait of the artist as a young woman in the heyday of bohemian New York City.

Genres: Poetry, Nonfiction, Memoir

288 pages, Paperback

First published April 30, 2019

About the author

Diane di Prima was an American poet and member of the Beat Generation. She was San Francisco’s poet laureate from 2009 to 2011.

Reviews

[amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

“i try to remember last year at this time. i remember nothing but an impending disaster.”

[Clara Martin]

“You are still the fact I live with, this is winter” “You are the blank wall I come to every turn. Wherever I start thinking.” “Do you recognize your shadow in my face?”

[Cami · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was gifted this book for my 29th birthday by a dear friend. In it, di Prima's recollections, memories, and thoughts of past fall, winter, spring, and summers are wrapped up with and alongside the year immediately following the death of her friend Freddie. The book is special to me in many regards, but additionally layered by the fact that Freddie died on October 27th (my birthday is Oct. 25th) at the age of 29. di Prima's grief is on the page, but it was her attention to the somewhat mundane detail that made up her life and the lives of those around her that came across in simple truths written in a poetic fashion. I read a few pages of this book every morning before or after I would write and it has been a reminder to pay attention to my own daily rememberings, griefs, joys, and interactions.

[boop · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful writing, so poetic
Will always remind me of my dearest friend (who bought this book for me) and a song called ‘The Bug Collector’ which I discovered while reading this. Painful and gorgeous

[Nicole Karvelas · Rating 3 out of 5]

it feels SO wrong to give this 3 stars. this book is beautifully poetic and masterfully written and I know it’s 5-star quality….. I just didn’t connect with it at all.

for being the same age as the author when this was written, I truly could not relate to her or her lifestyle at all. on top of that I really don’t know much about the beat poets, so i’m sure the people she was writing about are important but I didn’t know any of them :/

this collection is deeply personal and 5-star quality for the right audience, it just wasn’t for me.

[Charlie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Went in really wanting to be blown away by Di Prima's gussied up diary of a year dealing with loss and grief, and—one could say this is the point—found myself awash with the eventual tedium of life that fills the pages. The type of book that feels wrong to give any rating, it does extremely well at capturing snapshots of a specific moment in NYC avant-garde history, but these are not the coiffed Warholian portrait snapshots, they are the just-out-of-focus shots of the street or a sliver of sun through a tree-lined park, with the glare of a thumb taking up one of the corners.

[Thomas P. · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author is all over the place in this book, but the writing is outstanding, making this a very good read. In addition, I thought, again through great writing, that the reader could get a good feel for Bohemian life in the NYC of the 1950s and 60s.

[Julieta · Rating 4 out of 5]

i don’t know what to do with all that i just read

[Nolan Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

beautiful elegy

[Paul Wilner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful reflections on bohemia, art, politics and life on the East and West Coasts.
My piece, for the Nob Hill Gazette:

https://nobhillgazette.com/literature...

[Luke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Diane Di Prima is refreshing to read if you're into the beat generation. Perhaps how the beats became classic rock and lead the whole American hippie struggle against the war on Vietnam. Her perspective is overshadowed at times by the strong male personalities she surrounded herself with. Much of the beat stuff glorifies the freedom that comes with drugs, promiscuity, and violent alternatives. The emotions are all over the place, but short lived. She gets further into the melancholia of the lifestyle without it taking away from the authenticity. She gives herself and the people around her crap for things without making it some kind of spiritual awakening or moral hierarchy. You get the sense that these rebellious crazies are barely real people sometimes, despite all their best efforts to be the realist of things. After many years her work holds up as more authentic to me.

[perce · Rating 4 out of 5]

damn. everything i read by a beatnik i enjoy i fear. very good.