The Medieval LOVE Poem, 8th Street & Onward
I cannot say I ‚knew‘ Diane di Prima, but like other lovers of poetry, I did somehow know her Revolutionary Letters, Loba et. al.
At age 21, a refugee fr. Univ. of California
I want to understand the new poetic, the ’scene‘ I‘m wondering through the bookstores on 8th street, yes 8th street was still book heaven
in the mid-sixties – I see a small book –
Seven Love Poems fr. the Medieval Latin Diane di Prima, Poet‘s Press – a light opens up, a translator does not have to be a pro-
fessor, a translator of poetry is a poet. Many years later I publish SWEET ON MY LIPS The Love Poems of Mira Bai fr. the Medieval Hindi. You can under-
stand the relation. I‘ve gone to the University, far away, in California, hoping to benefit fr. the Beat Rennaissance. Bored I
immediately started to translate Truffaut‘s Les 400 Coups.. At another junction, post India, I‘m in Holland, in Rotter-
dam, its One World Poetry ca.
1985 & I have the job, honor, respon- sibility to show Diane the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, in Rotterdam which
I have learned to know on
various excursions to the city
w. Ira Cohen, to meet his publisher, his first publisher in the West, Gerard Bellaart, Cold Turkey Press. Ira thinks we‘re star crossed, in some sense, its true, to this day, nearly half a century later, Cold Turkey Press
kindly publishes poems letters, fragments, the best of LLL. But getting back to Diane…
We wander thru the musem, I am bereft then as
I am now, rejected in love, Diane finds this… ‚amusing‘ but in the deep sense. She is amazed that I can
be so hung up on an individual, or a gender,
she is into, she clarifies, the celebration of love itself, affection, heat & intimacy – as the Dalai Lama himself proclaimed when a discussion re homosexuality takes place on the inter –
all relations of affection are valid. This was Diane‘s message to me – gazing at the Ruysdael & Vermeer at the Boijmans Van Beuningenn
***
I‘ve been asked to write a short piece
on a poet I barely know. & suddenly, fragments of her life, her work turn up everywhere,
as though by chance. RF has sent
Peter Lamborne Wilson‘s Critique of the Image, Autonomedia, 2021, I come across a remarkably erudite article by Diane…
Before Melos Before Logos
the light of the figures phanoi dancing / revolving
barely formed or vivid as the Day
& w. / the forms the melos in the ear a clair audience
or the logos spoken & revealed to its root / revealed release of the breath
In this experience, the image-maker (would that he had a Paracelsian name)
stands behind us – – – – – & in us.. *
In the late works of Bruno imaginatio is the field in which all operations of consciousness occur
sensation perception cognition will concept All have their root in
& spring from
that primary function of human-ness
to imagine is at once to know & to create. **
Diane in 1976, is in Kathmandu & publishes w. Angus Maclise fr. Eidolon Editions, Dream Weapon, LOBA PART II,
w. drawings by Josie Grant
on delicate rice paper…Who knew that Diane was part of the Bardo Matrix Experiment ?
*
She surfaces today,
just a few days after Jack‘s passing (Jack Hirschman, 1933–2021)
in her more widely known Persona, she has written in her poem for his 80th birthday, City Lights,
San Francico (2013) –
Jack in a cottage, tucked in, looking out the window Jack Hirschman at UCLA reading papers from students Jack Hirschman holding forth against the Vietnam War Jack Hirschman pontificating, radicalizing said students Jack Hirschman and the students walking out of
UCLA to go to a demonstration
Jack Hirschman walking out of UCLA without a job
&
finally, Diane the healer, I have known Diane the poet-scholar translator
&
Diane the activist …now
I find a notation fr. Mary Norbert, former nun poet who tells No Land, Diane performed spiritual work on her that altered all – what kind of work?
I
MAGIC *
I will make you flesh again Have you slipped away?
think to elude, become past & black & white
as photograph
O I will
lure you into being till yo u stand flesh against my own
(fr. The Loba Continues to Sing Eidolon & Dream Weapon, 1976)
*
by Louise Landes Levi The Sagan, Rokohara, 2021