Diane di Prima and Lenore Kandel: March 17, 1976

Diane di Prima and Lenore Kandel take turns at the microphone, each presenting mostly new work.

di Prima reads: "Land's End" (noting it was written after viewing Jasper Johns' painting and begun as a letter to Robert Creeley), an untitled poem in nine parts which she notes is accompanying a friend who had died (subsequently titled "Westra Wad"), "In Memory of My First Chapatis" (from Kerhonkson Journal, 1966), "Ode to Sirens," "Backyard," part of "The Seven Joys of the Virgin" (from Part V of Loba), "Saint Brigid's Day," and "Tundra."

Kandel reads her poems: "Dryman," "The sun stands on the bridge of Capricorn...," "Dead Billy (for William Yarmuth)," "Were I a wise woman in the hill tribes...," "A Philosophy Easier to Apply in the Abstract Than When Needed" (with the title delivered after the poem), "There used to be poets in the hills of Larkspur...," "American Dreams," "Remembrance of Saint John the Dwarf," "A Prayer in the Wind," "The Phoenix," "The Dragon," "The Tiger," and "Hymn to Maitreya in America." 

Following their readings, Lenore Kandel and Diane di Prima take questions from their audience, among other subjects on a recent play by di Prima, featuring as characters Mary Shelley, Lord Byron, and Percy Shelley.