The transcript of the meeting in the restaurant Amberjack Sushi, 
at Church & 16th Street in San Francisco, August 2002
 

We didn’t write down any specific questions, just some notes for ourselves as a reminder... if you’re not interested in one topic, then we move to the next one...

Next! Next! (Diane di Prima laughs).

It’s going to be very informal... and then we will assemble the pieces... and translate them to Russian and maybe Italian.

If you get a Russian article, I have a sister-in-law. She doesn’t speak English, only Russian, she lives in New Jersey. You will make her so happy...  my brother’s third wife… they are very happy, very in love… [when they met] she was without a car, and working twelve hours a day for a very old man, taking care of him. In Ukraine she was an aeronautics engineer. She is a very intelligent woman but never learned English. And I would love the Italian version as well.

Do you know Italian?

Very little. When I was four or five, war was going to start... my relatives were afraid to be in America, afraid to speak Italian... I was born in 1934, but by 1938 they knew it would be war. I spoke to my grandparents, when I was very small, then I had to stop. My parents transferred fear to me... It was something forbidden... […]

In addition, my family didn’t want me to connect with my relatives in Italy; they were very ambivalent about me because of my lifestyle; they thought that my relatives would be very upset, so, I went only two times to Sicily, both times to a poetry festival, and neither time my mother ever gave me any addresses... […]

All these family stories! My brother is very upset [about di Prima’s published memoir Recollections Of My Life As a Woman], and my mother’s younger sister wrote me a very angry letter. They feel that I shouldn’t tell family stories, family secrets. That’s tough. I’m a writer, that’s what I do. (laughs)

I will read from here... (apologetically) I have some notes…

It’s OK to have notes! (Diane di Prima laughs)

I was thinking yesterday of the writers, of the poets of the Beat generation. Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Diane di Prima, Gregory Corso, Philip Lamantia... was it an Italian wave? Any specific reason for so many Italians?

I don’t know… It’s in the culture to be lyrical, they are drawn to poetry, they are drawn to some flowery prose, to music... everybody sings… it’s in the culture, and I think it’s very close in Sicily to Middle Eastern song. To melody lines in Middle Eastern music. It influenced me a lot. 

Could it be that the immigrant flavor gave a flavor for something different, for something new?

When I was four years old, my grandfather read me Dante, and poetry, and opera. He loved opera. He influenced my mind, together with political activism… Look at Corso, he had no [Italian] upbringing. [And he is] much more musical than Ginsberg. A different kind of sound...

I met Ginsberg ten years ago in Turin…

Let’s eat. We don’t need to ruin our food for talking. Let’s talk while eating. 

I met Ginsberg when he came to Turin. He was reading, and Philip Glass was playing the piano… Ginsberg gave a short lecture. And I asked him: do you have any regrets in your life? And his answer was a little bit aggressive. I was even taken aback. Yes, he said, I would like to seduce one more boy. Did I ask something wrong?

Not wrong, but it’s a strange way to look at your life in terms of regret... maybe if you did something differently, your life would be different. You can’t predict. 

What I meant was [that maybe he wanted] to study music or... spend one year in India... or become a catholic priest…

That would be good for Ginsberg. He could’ve seduced one more boy! (Diane di Prima laughs)

And how is Ferlinghetti?

He seems all right. At 86 he is allowed to be absent-minded... 

If he is absent-minded, is it still possible to interview him?

He is very reclusive, he is only interested in his paintings, [but] it’s possible if you come to him and ask for a painting. He has a gallery there... [he] has shows in Rome every year... he is not interested in interviews as a poet...

He doesn’t go to his bookstore, the City Lights?

Sometimes… he might be in the office, but not by the counter.

Is he still the owner of the City Lights?

They made a foundation… When he dies, there will be a foundation, so the store will continue... and the building is a historical landmark, they wouldn’t tear it down... he is supposed to do seminars, classes; they even asked me if I want to teach there...

They have a wonderful website too…

There is [another] wonderful website. My daughter sent it to me… [There was] an artist, a man in Russia. And he had a specially equipped railroad car which was given to him by the last tsar… It had a dark room, and he went before the Revolution taking photographs in color... he invented color before [the appearance of color photographs] by doing different filters... On this website you can see the most beautiful color photography of those architectural places, which are not there anymore... And I look at the churches, landscape, different regions*. I’m not interested in literature. I feed my mind with images... Why would I look at information; information doesn’t make a poem... Painting makes a poem happen, music, people, walking about the city... I don’t need more head trips...

Talking about music. You wrote about the Billie Holiday concert in Carnegie hall which you attended. She is great, and so is Maria Callas.

Yes, she is wonderful. My partner, he is a great aficionado of all kinds of American music, gospel, blues, jazz, and so on, said that America has no visual imagination. Why television is so boring...We have genius for music, but not for eyes. 

Last night we were at a concert where John Hammond Jr. was singing Tom Waits’ song, Wicked Grin, and a group was so good! John Hammond… 

Sheppard, my partner, worked for him in 1967. Then we saw him in the eighties, in the nineties... He is more grounded now as a musician. 

I don’t remember why this came up... the fact that American music is the one thing we have here, really... we have also poets but few people know us. We have great painters but very few.

My favorite’s Edward Hopper. Do you like him?

I like him ok, but I grew up with gestural work, with abstract expressionism. I like kinesthetic work, work with a lot of movement, body in it. 

Do you know in person some abstract expressionists?

I knew de Kooning a little... He was close to Amiri Baraka, when we were lovers... I’m a good friend of Mike Goldberg, who is the second generation abstract expressionist. Frank O’Hara wrote a very important poem for Mike’s birthday. He goes to Italy in summer, he has a home there... Alfred Leslie was an abstract expressionist, then later became a figure painter... A lot of his abstract work was lost when his loft burned in the late sixties; he lost all of his films. He made movies, too. Jamie Freilicher… In the last ten years she had a show in the Guggenheim. I knew Larry Rivers when I was still a New Yorker. 

You don’t like New York anymore?

It’s too difficult. I don’t like the noise, it’s rush-rush-rush. I don’t like Paris — sorry! Even if you are there for a few days, it’s too noisy. Drives me crazy. And everybody is running. Why are they running? My youngest daughter is having a baby. I couldn’t get into a sleeper. Nobody flies. So, I have to fly. I’m going in October. And all the trains were full by July.

 [In your memoir] you talked a lot about your grandmother... now, once you are on the other side of the road, how do you see it? What about your role as a matriarch?

I don’t see much of any of them; I gave them everything I could, and now they live their own life. I don’t look over their shoulder; we get together once per year for a family reunion in one of their houses, and Michelangelo, my granddaughter, wants to be a poet. She is 22. She is going to have a baby. Then we will be very close.

Do you enjoy yourself in the grandmother’s role?

Sure, I don’t mind that I’m getting older; it’s a natural way of the world. It’s wonderful actually.

As long as the brain works... the body is important, but the mind [especially]…

The body is important, too, if you can keep it going, it’s nice, since there are more options every day...

You have a beautiful message on your answering machine, where you say: “Americans, my fellow Americans, we are pure and stupid.”

That’s what they are. American people in general have no intelligence; they are not in contact with world history at all. In a way they are pure, even right-wingers. On the other hand, they have no subtlety, no ability to see the whole tapestry of history, to see what stage we are in, how we fit in, what we are doing in it... And the very corrupt government, the most corrupt.

It was a beginning of the Afghan war; I was stuck in the motel in New Jersey with my first watercolor show… We are sitting in this hotel, nothing to do, and we watch news. I’m seeing Afghan people getting out of their country with their backpacks. They are not so different from Western Americans in terms of how we approach essentials. Take an urban dweller in Sierra; there is a relation of how to survive [between us and them]. But no relation to human history, and that’s why we are pure and stupid. They can’t recognize that we are the same, very much like them, than like educated Parisian or Roman. We are much closer to these people, whom we are bombing.

Where were you on September 11?

My daughter called me up, at 6:30, when I was sleeping. She lives in Astoria, in New York; she bought that apartment with a view of Manhattan skyline. She was going to work and stopped by a shop run by Egyptian; he was very excited. She couldn’t understand why he was so excited. And the first tower was coming down. And she called me, “Mom, blah, blah, blah.” And I asked her, “What are they doing it for?”

We finished talking, and I turned the TV. And it was the second tower coming down... Between you and me, what did we expect? How can they be so stupid [not to expect it], if all this is happening everywhere else…

Did these events changed your way of seeing life?

Not the events, the way we respond to the events. I don’t want to be in an airport: I’m not afraid of terrorism, [but] I don’t want to see the police state shoved under my nose everyday. I’m not on the road anymore! And I used to go about four months a year… And then I stopped usual readings, lectures, panels. Now the only reason I’m going is because my daughter is having a baby.

Isn’t it somehow letting somebody else to decide for you?

It’s wonderful. The less I do the happier I am. I’m 68; I’d rather be at home, I’d rather paint. It was a part of my income... Now I do a one third less. I’ve never made much money; now I don’t buy many books; I go to the library instead of the bookstore. I’m much happier now than on the road. I did it also because I thought I had to... [Because I thought that] somehow I could be of use to somebody who tries to become and an artist or a writer. But I can’t do it at the expense of my cheerfulness...

I don’t want to pretend that the world is sane. They are going to put troops in airports, every kind of uniforms, every kind of guns. World is not sane. Here, [at the restaurant, there are] beautiful flowers, a nice girl, not too much money. I would prefer where it’s sane. Here is sane. My friend Michael McClure and I were here yesterday. He just came back from being on the road. He is 70. He was grouchy. He said: “I’m not doing what I want; I’m doing things for my career.” And I said to him: “Michael, you are 70. Do what you want. You have a choice.” I can see where I’m not going. A lot of choices that way. I can’t be pushed by the material need. 

I’m not teaching at Universities, colleges; I teach privately. I rent a space from an artist on Cesar Chavez and Mission. She charges me very little. And I teach classes. I have no faculty meetings; I have no papers to grade; I don’t have stupid people running my department; I’m lucky. Not so many people are registering, but it’s OK... It’s nice to have 30 [students], but 20-25 is good. Once a year I have to get them, and then it’s for nine months.

You met Ezra Pound…He is controversial in Italy because of his connections with fascism. The American government put him into a mental institution to save him...

That’s right; he was going to be killed for treason. And they declared him insane. Then it took ten-twelve years to take him out. And then he went back to Italy. I remember that time a little bit; I was so young. I was born in 1934, and it was in 1956. When I went to see him, he was there eight years or so. 

Do you have a special memory of him?

I wrote about it. I loved him and I still really do.

He was pure and stupid?

Politically, in some ways, he was stupid but not economically; he talked a lot about manipulation of exchange rate, worldwide, how people were getting rich. He talked about money expiring every thirty days: you get them in the mail, it’s for necessities... it goes in thirty days: you can’t save it, can’t use it for power... you can’t spend them after thirty days passed.

And Pound... in terms of writing poetry techniques, nobody’s caught up with Cantos…Charles Olson tried to emulate... he went farther in some ways, and in some ways he couldn’t catch... Because in certain ways Pound had a lot of hermetic knowledge of Europe in those Cantos. Olson was innocent of this knowledge. 

East, the Tantra, Hindu Tantra texts, so, he was trying to fill that in. Pound had nothing of the East, except that he accepted China. Olson didn’t get any of it. Another person I was reading and was fascinated by her... Sheri Martinelli. She disappeared...

I was corresponding with her in the 70s; she became a recluse because, she said, she lost her beauty. She was a very beautiful woman. She lost all her beauty. So what? Big deal! She moved East, she was still with a man Pound told her to marry.... He would arrange people to marry... They moved back to Carolina, I found it after she died. She died in the late 80s, early 90s, a wonderful painter… there is a book of her work or more than one produced in Italy with Pound’s help.

Was she really American Italian?

She was American, or American Italian, or that’s her ex-husband’s name. She was married and left her husband. And then moved to New York and became a fashion model, and got in touch with Ezra Pound. Anyway, visiting Pound was very inspiring to me, I was learning about poetry while reading his book. 

Are you more of a prose writer?

The memoirs are fun to do, but I’m a poet...

Floating Bear, the legendary magazine you were publishing… In your memoir you write that you came up with this name. LeRoi Jones, who would later become Amiri Baraka, didn’t like your idea at first but then you explained that “Floating Bear” was the name of Winnie the Pooh’s ship. At that time you were raising your little daughter, reading her children’s books — that’s why this reference to Milne’s character. You said to LeRoi that the magazine would float or drown, because for Winnie the Pooh all his travels were successful adventure or a disaster. And then LeRoi agreed. You didn’t sell Floating Bear in stores — you were sending it by mail to writers, painters and musicians asking them for donations. The magazine — or, let’s say, a leaflet — was made on the mimeograph, before the God Xerox appeared. There you published Charles Olson, Gary Snyder, John Ashbery, Hubert Selby, Frank O’Hara, Allen Ginsberg and other celebrities. Now Floating Bear is a bibliographic rarity, and one issue would cost you at least 50 bucks. And the whole collection of these “bears” — all issues published in the period from 1961 to 1971 — cost around three thousand dollars. Would you like to place it on the Web?

I’m not interested in the Web. See, people write me and say: “do a little literary magazine on the Web.” I’m not interested. I print my e-mails. I don’t read off the screen.

In your memoirs, you complained that you wasted a lot of time pasting and mailing...

Maybe you think I wasted my time, but I didn’t waste it.

Sorry, I meant that you had to do many manual things…

I love manual things... I’m doing it right now: we are making a little book, it’s going to be a peace reading, me and David Meltzer, poet, and less known Clive Matson. He wrote a poem “Towers Down.” Very ambiguous: “I’m crying, I’m celebrating. I’m crying for all the people. It isn’t enough. I’m writing about towers, it’s not enough.” He expressed the ambivalence of being a radical-minded poet but at the same time being American. I wrote a poem called Notes. Toward a poem of Revolution. It’s thirteen short poems. I’m putting it together, it’s a chapbook. I’m going to sell it at the peace reading. 

In Italy nobody is afraid of sex as here…

I remember my mother and her sisters sitting around and telling stories about their marriages and giggling about it... laugh, laugh, laugh... 

It’s not changing…

Not, it’s not. Nothing is changing. Women’s lib didn’t happen. Repression of sex is as much as ever. They worry what would happen to kids... One of my husbands was worrying [because] we were living on the edge of the canyon, and he was worrying [that] they are going to fall, they are going to fall… And you have to figure that they have as much sense, kids, as kittens and puppies. Any animal has some sense. Relax! People are insane here.

We have a lesbian friend who always says “womon” or “womyn” and has a real problem with men…Isn’t it sexism the other way around?

Oh yeah... it takes a while to find a balance... it’s just silly, but what can you do? It’s like an ethnic group who gets a privilege and then gets arrogant for a while...

Now everybody talks about PC [politically correct]. It’s not another conformism?

It’s so stupid, so what? (disinterested) So what? 

Freedom is also freedom to say things that people don’t like... I don’t mind if people say Italians are with the mafia. It’s OK, part true, part not true, I don’t care... As long as I am entitled to say what other ethnicities are... I believe in freedom.

Well, this freedom passed a certain point. There was so much racism in this country, against Blacks, Chinese… There should be a little bit more care that you would take... more Chinese people were lynched in California than Blacks in the South. Did you know that? American history just stinks.

Stinks of blood. You should take this into account too. Sure, it’s OK up to a point, but it’s inappropriate to joke around and to say to Chinese: “you are chink.” You can’t do it yet, it’s too much history and it’s too ugly... I hope that we are going to be more mixed up in terms of race... (laughs)

Italians are mandolina, mafia, pizza. I don’t know how many times you were labeled like this.

No, not me. My friend, Rachel Guido, wrote a book “How to Sing to a Dago.” [Dago is] one of those slur words for Italians, like wop or ginney... I’m so tired of people saying, what is your ethnicity? 

Do you have a writer’s block? What is writing block for Diana di Prima?

In 1968 I moved to California from New York and began sitting every morning at the Zen center. It was a major change at that time... It takes a long time for my subconscious to catch up where I am. Never had to worry about the writing block. It starts again when it wants to. I don’t sit down every morning and try to write. Poems come when they need to come. There is always overload. And if nothing comes at all, when I was younger... I would do translations, translate from Latin a lot; I learned it in high school, four years of Latin, I just bought Catullus again, I want some Ovid, Metamorphoses… Always journals, letters... It’s not like I’m afraid of a pen or piece of paper... You can’t get a block, when you have so many writing jobs, letters... It’s usually when it’s a big change... Then it takes time... sometimes it’s half a year... 

What about your creative writing seminars? Any interesting people there?

Sometimes you get wonderful people and sometimes they are not so good. I do something that I call theory and study of poetics. We are going to study essays by Robert Creeley about line breaks, what he says about syncopation. We do Creeley for two months, and then look at Burroughs, then the book The Third Mind by Burroughs. About random techniques, he wrote it with Brion Gysin. In the beginning class there is a lot of random work. They also work with each other’s images; they trade off vocabulary cards...

Is it true that editing part is more difficult than writing itself?

Very little editing… When I was a young poet, I did a lot of rewriting, that’s how I learned my craft... poems come clear, sometimes I just hear them and write them out, very little change. Sometimes when it gets stuck, I maybe take a few words out. My editor at Viking edited something by taking Italian syntax out of my English… and she made a mess... I readjusted it again; she didn’t know what she was doing. Pain in the neck!

Did your Italian help you with English?

I wanted my Italian kind of rhythms to be seen through my English, especially in the early parts of the book. I started my phrases with “buts” or “ands”; I would leave extra words in... and he wanted it to be school English. I think that’s why so many books people should be interested in sound the same. Editors make them sound the same. I tried to read a memoirs from a poet from Hawaii, Garrett Hongo — it sounds the same. Let’s take black English, there is really a rhythm… or take Gary Thomas, Spanish writer from the East Bay. He is Puerto-Rican, his English is from the streets, and now editors take it out…They make all the work like it went through a blender... like processed cheese...

Why Zen and Buddhism were such an influence on Beat poets?

There is a book on that. Beneath a Single Moon. It’s a beat anthology of mostly beat poets and poetry related to Buddhism. Gary Snyder wrote an introduction. I wrote an essay explaining some stuff... 

A sentence in your book really hit me. You were writing about the diseases of terror and an attempt to control, when you talked about physical diseases and how they were related to emotional part...

Was it in my memoir? I don’t remember. What was I talking about?

About physical illnesses in your life, how they were related to your psyche, how they were related to your psychic involvement into various life situations... 

I think my parents were afraid of everything, so, they lived in complete terror... it made me crazy, since it’s not my nature. Now I feel that there is disease and terror everywhere, everything is crazy; everything is about destruction. It comes from an attempt to control. But how much insurance can you buy...

And through Zen you could control better?

No, opposite, you shouldn’t have any control... Think about painting, Japanese painting, no control, but enormous amount of discipline went to the place that you had to control... that’s what I’m saying of not doing poems... not to have to edit much... The Japanese painter Hokusai: when he was seventy, he finally knew how to make a dot... he said, if I can live for some ten more years, I can do a line... 
 

* The person Diane di Prima talks about is probably the photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (1863-1944).