from Datebook
Diane di Prima, a prolific poet who pursued the life of a Beat and rose to the position of San Francisco poet laureate, died Sunday, Oct. 25. Di Prima was born Aug. 6, 1934, in Brooklyn, raised in the Italian-American neighborhood of Carroll Gardens. Her father was a lawyer and her mother a schoolteacher. She told The Chronicle her grandfather spoke Italian to her and taught her to be an anarchist, a political leaning she supported ever after. “My mom was fearless,” Dominique DiPrima, a talk radio host and activist, told The Chronicle. “She taught us to question authority and believe in the power of our creativity. She was truly a pioneer.”