Di Prima will be the second writer from that long ago era of “inconsequential”, not often heard of and consigned to insignificance. Chase Twichell, featured last month was a fellow traveler of those times…the times of working outside the current model of success. It’s interesting to me that in my travels around the international internet scene I’m stumbling across many more female writers doing likewise, who are modern day.

A friend I met on the Internations Expat site living in Florida, but only for the next few breaths of time, is heading to Ecuador. She is a independent film maker, working for high end corporations as her day job, feeling consumed, subsumed even she is making a break to go pursue her first love, writing.

Then in Hazlitt, on-line magazine, I read of a young Canadian journalist working frantically to get a position on a magazine, newspaper, anywhere to pay off her school debt; Alexandra Kimball who finally just struck out on her own. And got published. And got awarded for it. And got another brilliant piece picked up.

So, I don’t know if we are looking at history repeating itself or the slow slog forward that writing recognition carries, but I do find it exciting.

Here’s Diane:

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I have just realized that the stakes are myself

I have no other

ransom money, nothing to break or barter but my life

Diane Di Prima, “Revolutionary Letters”

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And again:

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THE ONLY WAR THAT MATTERS IS THE WAR AGAINST THE IMAGINATION
THE ONLY WAR THAT MATTERS IS THE WAR AGAINST THE IMAGINATION
THE ONLY WAR THAT MATTERS IS THE WAR AGAINST THE IMAGINATION

ALL OTHER WARS ARE SUBSUMED IN IT

Diane Di Prima, “Rant”

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And so we gain a sense of her grit…what kept her writing through poverty and single motherhood.

And yes, the odds are stacked against us, often. Sometimes a break comes, other times we make our own.

Keep reading folks, it really lends courage.

Join us won’t you at: m.diane.writeon@gmail.com for our on-line writers group.