di Prima, Diane

Recollections of My Life as a Woman: The New York Years (Two Editions)

New York, NY: Viking/ The Penguin Group, 2001. First Hardcover Edition; First Softcover Edition. Hardcover; Softcover. "...Diane di Prima's evocative memoir, in which she explores the first three decades of her extraordinary life and how she came to define herself as a woman. She grew up in Brooklyn in the 1930s and '40s in an Italian American family, and only by heroic effort was she able to break away and follow through on a lifelong commitment to become a poet, first made when she was in high school. Immersing herself in the exciting world of Manhattan's early 1950s Bohemia, di Prima quickly emerged as a major force, becoming a renowned poet, an influential editor, and a single mother at a time when that was unheard of. Recollections of My Life as a Woman chronicles the intense, creative cauldron of those years as the Beat movement emerged on both coasts and the country accelerated into the sixties. Poetry, painting, dance, and theatre flowed into one another, and well-known figures from all of those worlds- including Merce Cunningham, Frank O'Hara, Audre Lord, Yvonne Rainer, and Franz Kline- move through her story." (from front flap) A memoir by Diane di Prima (1934-2020), among the primary- and one of the few female- original poets of the Beat Generation & Beyond. Covering the same early years as her previous Memoirs of a Beatnik (1969), expanded & from a later, ever-wiser perspective. Almost everyone we can think of, & then some, from the Beat Generation, San Francisco Renaissance & other contemporary movements in literature & the arts interacted with di Prima & appear in anecdote after anecdote in these pages. We offer two editions here in one bundle: Hardcover in unclipped first-issue dust jacket (with $29.95 price & "0401" printed on front flap), first edition, first printing as indicated by number sequence on copyright page; & the first trade-format softcover edition, fifth printing as indicated by number sequence on copyright page. Both volumes are from the collection of Erin Black Matson, the late artist-poet who, with her then-husband the acclaimed poet & educator Clive Matson, were members of the Beat Generation- morphing into the hippie counterculture during the 1960s on the Lower East Side of NYC- the same milieu described & relived in this memoir. The Matsons were protégé-colleagues (in lifestyle as much as literature) of Herbert Huncke, Bonnie Bremser & di Prima herself, who through her Poet's Press imprint published the legendary Huncke's Journal (see our item No. 2953) which was illustrated by Erin. The publication of Huncke's Journal & a collection by Clive are mentioned here (pgs. 412-413), & we wouldn't be surprised if the Matsons appear elsewhere in di Prima's recollections of this heady time & place. A fascinating & rewarding di Prima collectible, in both its rarest original form & with a fine "reading copy" included, & with distinguished, relevant provenance. The condition of these items, especially of the hardcover's dust jacket , befit their long ownership & use by Erin, who was a tried-&-true Beat-Bohemian straight out of these pages to the very end: Hardcover book in fine condition with light wear at thin edges & corners of front, back covers & spine; mild-to-moderate spotting to edges of text block. Interior very fine with only light spotting to blank paste-downs & endpapers; miniscule bleeding of spots noted above onto side edges of a few page leaves; tiny bumps at corners of a few of same. Dust jacket fair-to-good with mild rubbing, creasing, scratching & spotting to front, back covers, spine & flaps; mild wear & some tiny bumps, creases at edges & corners of same; one neat, medium-size closed vertical cut-tear from upper-left edge of back cover several inches down, not substantially effecting legibility of text; two small areas of transparent tape repair-reinforcement at upper & lower edges/ margins, corners of back cover. Softcover fine with very light rubbing, faint scratching to front, back covers & spine; a bit of wear & some tiny bumps, creases at thin edges & corners of same; one thin, shallow non-penetrating vertical gauge-scratch at middle of back cover; mild browning & spotting to edges of text block. Interior very fine with only mild-to-moderate browning mostly to blank margins of page leaves; tiny bumps at corners of a few of same. Fine / Fair- Good. [Item #4755]

Price: $40.00