DI PRIMA DIANE: (1934- ) American Poet, associated with the Beat movement. T.L.S., Diane, one pa...

DI PRIMA DIANE: (1934- ) American Poet, associated with the Beat movement. T.L.S., Diane, one pa...
DI PRIMA DIANE: (1934- ) American Poet, associated with the Beat movement. T.L.S., Diane, one page, 4to, Sawyer's Bar, California, 11th October 1969, to 'Dearest Brother John', on the attractive printed stationery of the Poets Press Inc. of San Francisco. Di Prima writes a friendly letter, reporting on her recent activities, in part, '….I am now this minute sitting in a barn loft, typing by the light of a kerosene lamp, at Black Bear Ranch, which is about 10 bumpy hours by car from that little oasis of civilization and violence which is San Francisco. The ghosts of Oak Street became too much for me to cope with, the little neighbourhood (black) kiddies became too much for Mini & Alex [two of her five children] and then the FBI kept coming around to see me, so I cut out with the kids and Grant Fisher [her future second husband, whom she married in 1972]…..Hope to make the barn loft more or less snug with good heating stoves and rugs, it's a pleasant enuf space…..Maybe you'll come and visit us one day……I have got rid of Poets Press. I'm going to try out some of the things I wrote about in the Rev[olutionary] letters, & see what happens from there. I'm also going to write a lot of the shit I wanted to write, and forget about how much or little bread I get out of it all…..What else? except to say I love & miss you & wd like to hear…..' VG On several occasions Di Prime faced charges of obscenity and in 1961 had been arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for the publication of two poems. In 1969, the year of the present letter, Di Prima wrote a fictionalised, erotic account detailing her experience in the Beat movement entitled Memoirs of a Beatnik.