REVOLUTIONARY LETTERS ETC 1966-1978 by Diane Di Prima

Boldly SIGNED & INSCRIBED by Diane Di Prima on the title page in black ink: "For Jo / Staunch friend / w/ my thanks for your work / on Towers Down for 9/11/02 / Onward! / Diane di Prima"

Published by City Lights Books, San Francisco, California, The Pocket Poets Series, No. 27. January 1979 Fourth Edition. Perfect bound, 6.25" x 4.75", 124 pages, rear cover has black & white photograph of Diane di Prima. NEAR FINE Condition: just a touch of light foxing to the front cover, page edges and ffep, and a light crease to the spine, otherwise tight, bright, clean and unmarked. An excellent signed and inscribed copy.

Revolutionary Letters was an expanding project that was originally printed in 1968 with only 15 poems by Communications Co., the publishing arm of the Diggers. Lawrence Ferlinghetti's City Lights published the first Pocket Poets edition in March 1971. In October 1971 the second edition added six more letters, the third edition in 1974 added another 15, and the 1979 fourth edition brought the numbered poems up to 70. The black and red anarchist cover graphic was painted by Ferlinghetti himself.

Diane di Prima (1934-2020) began writing her Revolutionary Letters in 1968, soon after she moved to San Francisco to work with The Diggers, an activist performance troupe who distributed free food around the Bay Area. Di Prima read these early Letters - numbered poems combining elements of lyric, epistle, memoir and practical instruction in the arts of revolution - on the steps of San Francisco City Hall. The arc of the books mirrors the trajectory of the possibility of armed revolution in this country. Today it's a relevant call to action, a way to educate a new generation who want to bring about necessary societal change.

Jo Kaufman (1950-2025) Creative Writing Professor at the University of San Francisco who studied poetry with Diane di Prima and became close friends, a friendship that endured for decades.