di Prima, Diane (Glover, Albert)

Recollections of My Life as a Woman: The New York Years with: Ephemera

ISBN: 9780670851669
New York, NY, USA: Viking Books, 2001. First Edition. Hardcover. “My earliest sense of what it means to be a woman was learned from my grandmother, Antoinette Mallozzi, and at her knee. It was a house of dark and mellow light, almost as if there were fire and kerosene lamps, but to my recollection there was electric light, the same as everywhere else. It is just that the rooms were so very dark, light filtering as it did through paper shades and lace curtains, and falling then on dark heavy furniture (mahogany and walnut) and onto floors and surfaces yellowed with many layers of wax, layers of lemon oil. The light fell as if on old oil paintings, those glazes, the veneer. Sepia portraits: Dante, Emma Goldman. There was a subtle air of mystery. The light fell on my grandmother’s hands as she sat rocking, saying her rosary. She smelled of lemons and olive oil, garlic and waxes and mysterious herbs. I loved to touch her skin. There was this mystery: she sat, saying her beads, but the beads and her hand never completely left her apron pocket. My grandfather was an atheist, and if she heard his step on the stairs she would slip the beads out of sight and take up some work. They had lived thus for forty years, and the mystery was how much they loved each other. To my child’s senses, already sharpened to conflict, there was no conflict in that house. He was an atheist, she a devout Catholic, and for all intents and purposes they were one. It would never do to argue with him about God, and so when he came into the room she slipped the beads away.”--Diane di Prima, pg. 1. Diane di Prima (1934-2020) was a Beat poet, artist, prose writer, and teacher. A New York woman, born and raised, di Prima immersed herself in the burgeoning Beat movement as it was developing in Greenwich Village, where she befriended Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997), Frank O’Hara (1926-1966), Jack Kerouac (1922-1969), Amiri Baraka (1934-2014) a/k/a Leroi Jones (with whom she co-edited the literary magazine The Floating Bear from 1961 to 1969), and Audre Lorde (1934-1992). Di Prima published more than 40 books. Her poetry collections included This Kind of Bird Flies Backward (1958), the long poem Loba (1978, expanded 1998), and Pieces of a Song: Selected Poems (2001). Offered today is the memoir Recollections of My Life As a Woman (2001). Which explores the first three decades of her extraordinary life. Born into a conservative Italian American family, di Prima grew up in Brooklyn but broke away from her roots to follow through on a lifelong commitment to become a poet, first made when she was in high school. Immersing herself in Manhattan’s early 1950s Bohemia, di Prima quickly emerged as a renowned poet, an influential editor, and a single mother at a time when this was unheard of. Vividly chronicling the intense, creative cauldron of those years, she recounts her revolutionary relationships and sexuality, and how her experimentation led her to define herself as a woman. What emerges is a fascinating narrative about the courage and triumph of the imagination, and how one woman discovered her role in the world. A great di Prima collectible! From the collection of Albert Glover (1942-2026), the great American scholar, bibliographer, author & publisher who was the foremost remaining authority on literary giant Charles Olson (our favorite Maximus Obscurantist), with whom we're honored to have been acquainted. We have found and retained between front cover and first paste down page (to which Glover affixed his “Ex Libris Glover” placard) 1) a “With the compliments of the author” postcard from the publisher and 2) a photo-copy of a review of Recollections of My Life As a Woman by Barbara Grizzuti Harrison (1934-2002) from Sunday, May 6, 2001. Hardcover in unclipped dust jacket. First edition though not explicated as such on copyright page, first printing as indicated by number sequence thereon. Book in very fine condition with only minor wear to fine edges. Dust jacket very fine with light wear to fine edges, minor smudging/scratching to front and back covers, and very light discoloration due to age-toning. Very Fine / Very Fine. [Item #8701]

Price: $60.00