Lyrical and unforgettable, part elegy and part memoir, we present a
previously unpublished masterpiece from the Beat Generation icon.
Simultaneously released with an expanded edition of di Prima's classic
Revolutionary Letters on the one-year anniversary of her passing.
In the autumn of 1964, Diane di Prima was a young poet living in New
York when her dearest friend, dancer, choreographer, and Warhol Factory
member, Freddie Herko, leapt from the window of a Greenwich Village
apartment to a sudden, dramatic, and tragic death at the age of 29. In
her shock and grief, di Prima began a daily practice of writing to
Freddie. For a year, she would go to her study each day, light a stick
of incense, and type furiously until it burned itself out.
The narrative ranges over the decade from 1954--the year di Prima and
Herko first met--to 1965, with occasional forays into di Prima's
memories of growing up in Brooklyn. Lyrical, elegant, and nakedly
honest, Spring and Autumn Annals is a moving tribute to a friendship,
and to the extraordinary innovation and accomplishments of the period.
Masterfully observed and passionately recorded, it offers a uniquely
American portrait of the artist as a young woman in the heyday of
bohemian New York City.
One of The Millions' Most Anticipated Books of 2021.
Praise for Spring and Autumn Annals:
"The book is a treasure. Moving between the East Village, San Francisco,
Topanga Canyon and Stinson Beach with young children, di Prima's life is
unbelievably rich. She studies Greek, writes, prepares dinners and
feasts, and co-edits Floating Bear magazine. Diane di Prima is one of
the greatest writers of her generation, and this book offers a window
into its lives."--Chris Kraus
"Extolled by a writer who radically devoted herself to the experiential
truth of beauty and intellect, in poverty and grace, in independent
dignity, and in the community of Beat consciousness, Diane di Prima's
Spring and Autumn Annals arrives as a long-lost charm of illuminated
meditations to love, life, death, eros and selflessness. An essential
1960s text of visionary rapaciousness."--Thurston Moore
"Freddie Herko wished for a third love before he died; and what a love
is in this book's beholding, saying, and release. Di Prima's dancing
narrative, propelled and circling at the speed of thought, picking up
every name and detailed perception as a rolling tide, fills me with
gratitude for the truth of her eye. Nothing gets past it, not even the
'ballet slippers letting in the snow.'"--Ana Bozičevic
"A masterpiece of literary reflection, as quest to archive her dancer
friend's life, to make art at all costs and the price dearly paid. Di
Prima's observational capacity is profound, her devotion and loyalty
assures her deserved place as a national treasure. She generously
instills in us the call of poetic remembrance as an act of resistance,
and gives voice to the marginalized participants in experimental
cultural movements that carried courage in creative rebellion while
envisioning freedom of the human spirit. Di Prima's poetic memoir of the
artist journey is a triumph. A must read and reread for years to
come."--Karen Finley
