“‘Little Hill’ ... embraces radical, multitudinous forms of love, rendered visible in a number of compelling guises: milkweed, poplar, ocean, inquiry, ... ‘the whale’s heft, buoyant in dark sea.’” Photo by Christopher Michel, via Flickr.
Little Hill by Alli Warren is a poetry collection that embraces radical, multitudinous forms of love, rendered visible in a number of compelling guises: milkweed, poplar, ocean, inquiry, the portion of the neck where one’s nose fits, anticapitalist philosophy, music, “the whale’s heft, buoyant in dark sea,”[1] community, resonance. The poems refute and reimagine the present with a measured and resolute sonic temperance:
Al Filreis and three interlocutors — Kristen Gallagher, Lee Ann Brown, and Laynie Browne — met up at the Kelly Writers House in Philadelphia to talk about Diane di Prima’s collection (and ongoing project) of quasi-epistolary poems, Revolutionary Letters. The group discussed three poems: #16 (“We are eating up the planet”), #19 (“If what you want is jobs”), and #27 (“How much can we afford to lose before we win”). Di Prima began writing the letters in 1968, and they were first gathered and published by City Lights in 1971. A red-covered fiftieth anniversary edition was issued by City Lights in 2021. Our recordings of di Prima performing these three poems come from various sources and are available at the di Prima PennSound page: for #16 we hear a a recording made in 1969, while for #19 we have undated tape (possibly 1982), and for #27we hear a performance given at Naropa in 1978.
Like so many of us who feel most at home in books, I’ve turned to books in Trump times. The one morning ritual that has stuck with me since November 9 is finding a poem over coffee that I can cling to for the rest of the day. I make it my guiding light, looking back on it throughout the day and receiving its text as instructions.
