American song we see some traditional shamanic
themes. These traditional shamanic themes are
also present in “Yin and yang” a “liturgical poem
of natural cycles” with “resurrecting birds”. The
poem blurs the line between darkness and light,
male and female. In another poem “when we with
Sappho” the poet compares his friend to St.
Francis, the Christian Orpheus who united with
the soul of all beings and living animals. Here the
shaman is also prevalent. Finally In “A
Prolegomenon to a theodicy” Rexroth enters
through a Dantean hell and envisions the
apocalypse. Here is an example of Shamanic
ecstasy in the sense of a Christian visionary akin
to St. Paul. There is certainly overlap between the
seers of Christianity and the shaman, as they are
both full sequences of religiosity.
XI
Diane Di Prima was influenced by Keats,
Shelly, Byron, Shakespeare and Millay, she is the
most widely read female poet of the beat
generation, concerned with poetics, politics and
feminism. She paid visits and exchanged
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