Diane DiPrima was born on August 6th,1934 in Brooklyn, New York. She began writing at the age of 7, and graduated from Hunter High School in Manhattan at the age of 13. She studied physics for almost 2 years at Swathmore College before quitting to pursue her love of writing and knowledge. For this love, she moved to the Lower East Side and worked in bookstores, along with other odd, part-time jobs. In 1953, Diane started a relationship with Ezra Pound. Also that year, she met teacher/choreographer James Waring. Thus began her serious studying of Zen and meditative composition. This paved the way to a lifelong practice of Buddhism. In 1957, Diane met Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Peter Orlovsky, and Gregory Corso. Also that year, her daughter Jeanne was born. In 1961, she traveled to the West Coast and met Robert Duncan, Helen Adam, Michael McClure, Kirby Doyle, Wallace Berman, and Jay DeFeo. She also married Alan Marlowe in 1961; they divorced in 1969. In 1972, she married Grant Fisher; they divorced in 1975. Two years after their divorce, she met her life partner, Sheppard Powell (a fellow Buddhist). In 1980, Diane helped found (and also teaches) the Masters Program in Poetics at the new College of California in San Francisco with Robert Duncan, David Meltzer, Duncan McNaughton, and Louis Patler. Here, she taught occult and Hermetic traditions in Poetry for 7 years. She also taught healing work and magical practice at her San Francisco Institute of Magical and Healing Arts. In 1983, she embraced Tibetan Buddhism and became a student of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche.
Her works have spanned fifty years.
Carolyn Cassady Gregory Corso Gary Snyder Kenneth Rexroth Lucien Carr Michael McClure
John Clellon Holmes Philip Lamantia Bob Kaufman Jan Kerouac LeRoi Jones Bob Dylan
Charles Bukowski Anne Waldman Joanne Kyger Herbert Huncke
Peter Orlovsky Philip Whalen
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