three cheers for diane di prima
In Recollections of My Life as a Woman, the poet Diane di Prima tells of a night at Allen Ginsberg's place in New York. She'd gotten a friend to babysit her young daughter and headed over to Ginsberg's apartment because Jack Kerouac and Philip Whalen were in town for "one of those nights with lots of important intense talk about writing you don't remember later."
Well, Diane had promised her babysitter that she'd be back at 11:30 that night, and 11:30 starts rolling around, so she bids her farewells. "Whereupon, Kerouac raised himself up on one elbow on the linoleum and announced in a stentorian voice: "DI PRIMA, UNLESS YOU FORGET ABOUT YOUR BABYSITTER, YOU'RE NEVER GOING TO BE A WRITER.""
How do you like that?
Kerouac just raises himself up on his one drunken elbow and slaps us with the great fear we all share. He embodies the archetype of the selfish, self-destructive male artist and he announces that unless we, too, are willing to be irresponsible to our relationships, we’ll never quite measure up.
"I considered this carefully, then and later," di Prima writes, "and allowed that at least part of me thought he was right. But nevertheless I got up and went home."
Three cheers for di Prima!
"I'd given my word to my friend," she explains, "and I would keep it. Maybe I was never going to be a writer, but I had to risk it. That was the risk that was hidden (like a Chinese puzzle) inside the other risk of: can I be a single mom and be a poet?""
A serious question, that one. Serious not only for single moms, but for all of us. Can we be present in our relationships and still do the work we feel called to do? It's like my friend Lynn says: "A woman has to make a real effort not to dissolve into everything that needs her." Our relationships need us, but we don't want to dissolve. We refuse to dissolve, but we choose also to be responsible to our relationships. We're tired of the drunk guy on the linoleum telling us we can't do both. Women have always done both.
Looking back, di Prima recognizes what is true: Had she opted to stay that night, "there would be no poems. That is, the person who would have left a friend hanging who had done her a favor, also wouldn't have stuck through thick and thin to the business of making poems. It is the same discipline throughout--"
The same discipline.
And discipline, like motherhood, is good for the soul. Poetry is good for the soul. Responsibility to all of our dysfunctional relationships is good for the soul. The archetype of the selfish male artist tells us that we can't manage all of these things at once, that we can't be simultaneously responsible to children, babysitters, self, and art, that we have to sacrifice, to abandon—but we know that’s a lie.
As I write this, Kerouac has been in his grave for nearly 40 years. Diane di Prima is down in San Francisco, mother of five children, author of 35 books of poetry and several memoirs, powerhouse and 21st century radical.
In Revolutionary Letters, di Prima writes, "Be strong. We have the right to make the universe we dream. No need to fear 'science' groveling apology for things as they are, ALL POWER TO JOY, which will remake the world."
Three cheers for the courage to make the universe we dream.
Well, Diane had promised her babysitter that she'd be back at 11:30 that night, and 11:30 starts rolling around, so she bids her farewells. "Whereupon, Kerouac raised himself up on one elbow on the linoleum and announced in a stentorian voice: "DI PRIMA, UNLESS YOU FORGET ABOUT YOUR BABYSITTER, YOU'RE NEVER GOING TO BE A WRITER.""
How do you like that?
Kerouac just raises himself up on his one drunken elbow and slaps us with the great fear we all share. He embodies the archetype of the selfish, self-destructive male artist and he announces that unless we, too, are willing to be irresponsible to our relationships, we’ll never quite measure up.
"I considered this carefully, then and later," di Prima writes, "and allowed that at least part of me thought he was right. But nevertheless I got up and went home."
Three cheers for di Prima!
"I'd given my word to my friend," she explains, "and I would keep it. Maybe I was never going to be a writer, but I had to risk it. That was the risk that was hidden (like a Chinese puzzle) inside the other risk of: can I be a single mom and be a poet?""
A serious question, that one. Serious not only for single moms, but for all of us. Can we be present in our relationships and still do the work we feel called to do? It's like my friend Lynn says: "A woman has to make a real effort not to dissolve into everything that needs her." Our relationships need us, but we don't want to dissolve. We refuse to dissolve, but we choose also to be responsible to our relationships. We're tired of the drunk guy on the linoleum telling us we can't do both. Women have always done both.
Looking back, di Prima recognizes what is true: Had she opted to stay that night, "there would be no poems. That is, the person who would have left a friend hanging who had done her a favor, also wouldn't have stuck through thick and thin to the business of making poems. It is the same discipline throughout--"
The same discipline.
And discipline, like motherhood, is good for the soul. Poetry is good for the soul. Responsibility to all of our dysfunctional relationships is good for the soul. The archetype of the selfish male artist tells us that we can't manage all of these things at once, that we can't be simultaneously responsible to children, babysitters, self, and art, that we have to sacrifice, to abandon—but we know that’s a lie.
As I write this, Kerouac has been in his grave for nearly 40 years. Diane di Prima is down in San Francisco, mother of five children, author of 35 books of poetry and several memoirs, powerhouse and 21st century radical.
In Revolutionary Letters, di Prima writes, "Be strong. We have the right to make the universe we dream. No need to fear 'science' groveling apology for things as they are, ALL POWER TO JOY, which will remake the world."
Three cheers for the courage to make the universe we dream.
posted by Contact at 9:00 PM
8 Comments:
Wow, this really hit home for me today. My three year old is sick, and I am in the middle of finals at med school. I just wrote about it on my blog, ending it with "Why is it so hard to be a caring parent and have a career or education?"
Thanks for this post!
Thank you for writing this. I lived with the ghost of Kerouac in my head for many years before I got my hands on the essays in Mamaphonic and realized there are many paths to creative work.
Fuck Kerouac. I must now go read all of Di Prima's works, but none of the writings of corpse-man.
Excellent, one reason (of many) that I really love DiPrima.
And I agree about the fear, the inability to "focus" at times, the lack of availability we have chosen- would not trade my choices for anything in the world.
Wouldn't you just love to answer him back?! But I can't, so instead I'll answer back all the male writers who try to trip up women writers, in their various and obvious ways. I'll keep writing, in spite of their reservations. And I'll succeed!
Ahh... I've been needing to read this. Artmaking always gets sacrificed when choices about time have to be made. Maybe I start to think about the choices differently. Thanks much!
I read this at the exact time I needed to. Big surprise tho. With the balancing act of being all things to all people in my playing field, myself included, I need to be reminded that this is not new for me or any mother and woman. Thanks. A fresh burst of energy is surging even as my 7 month old squirms in my lap teething noisily.
Hey, I didn't know Jack Kerouac was my dad? I mean, I knew he wanted to be him...
It's funny, Dad artists... maybe back in the day, maybe not so much now... got the chance to be pricks.
Mom artists...? We've got a lot to think about, a lot to do, and it isn't all about being an artist... or, wait, it is, just we get to include our children in the being/making of an artist.
Because of my father, I always rejected the stereotypical definitions of the artist, self-involved, suffering, drunken, crazy. I wanted to be an artist and be whole, at the same time.
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