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            <p>Information about the source</p>
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         <p>The physical text in which this online edition of Loba is based off of is a part
         of the world class collection at the Yale Beinecke library. When I planned to look
         at the text on site, I did not know what I was going to be looking at. The first 
         edition of Loba was published in 1978 while the most complete, polished version was
         published in 1993. I was told that the edition held at the Beinecke was published in
         1973, about four year before the official first edition was published. When I got to 
         meet this mystery edition of Loba in person, I was ecstatic. The slim, hardcovered 
         chapbook I discovered was filled with beautiful illustrations, had been signed by
         Diane di Prima herself, and one of one-hudred copies of a work-in-progress, pre-
         first edition publiction of Loba. It was beautiful and was much more than what I
         had been expecting.</p>
         
         <p>From my own study and experience, I believe that di Prima is one of the most 
         under-rated writers of the twentieth century. It always suprises me how little 
         scholarship there is about her work and how often she is forgotten from literary
         conversations. Aside from her impressive quality and quantity of work, di Prima
         the person is as interesting as any of the other Beats. A Brooklynite born of 
         an Italian-American immigrant family, di Prima began her poetic career after--
         like many of her peers--dropping out of Swarthmore College. She made a pact to 
         her art and dedicated her life to poetry. In the 1950's through the 1960's, di 
         Prima performed her poems in popular Beat venues and associated with well known
         literary names including Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. She did, however, live 
         differently from some of the quicidental Beat writers. She enbraced her femininity
         and wanted to balance her writing with her romantic and familial life. She used 
         her womanhood as inspiration for her work and never saw her feminine power as a 
         weakness in the male-dominated Beat movement. She would go on to publish 
         several collections of poetry and memoirs (including Loba), serve as editor for 
         literary magazines, and become an activist of body positivity.</p>
         
         <p>There are few examples of digitalized editions of di Prima's work and nearly
         no online editions of Loba. The scarcity and lack of accessability, was one of 
         my main motivators for creating this online edition. The original text that inspired 
         this edition does differ from its didgital version. Some of these differences
         were intentional while others were due to technical limitations. It should be noted that
         the physical edition has page numbers, page breaks, and stylistic examples of indentation.
         The page numbers and breaks were removed in order to create a cleaner and smoother text
         for readers. The stylisic gaps were more difficult to replicate and would not have 
         been the best representation of the author's style. Because of this, I decided to remove
         the irregular spacing from both of the edition's sections. Some of the illustrations, 
         which were made esspecially for Loba by Josie Grant, were included in this online edition.
         Each illustration is viewable to the reader through the "Files" option located on the 
         left-hand side of each text. 
         </p>
         
         
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Information about the source

The physical text in which this online edition of Loba is based off of is a part of the world class collection at the Yale Beinecke library. When I planned to look at the text on site, I did not know what I was going to be looking at. The first edition of Loba was published in 1978 while the most complete, polished version was published in 1993. I was told that the edition held at the Beinecke was published in 1973, about four year before the official first edition was published. When I got to meet this mystery edition of Loba in person, I was ecstatic. The slim, hardcovered chapbook I discovered was filled with beautiful illustrations, had been signed by Diane di Prima herself, and one of one-hudred copies of a work-in-progress, pre- first edition publiction of Loba. It was beautiful and was much more than what I had been expecting.

From my own study and experience, I believe that di Prima is one of the most under-rated writers of the twentieth century. It always suprises me how little scholarship there is about her work and how often she is forgotten from literary conversations. Aside from her impressive quality and quantity of work, di Prima the person is as interesting as any of the other Beats. A Brooklynite born of an Italian-American immigrant family, di Prima began her poetic career after-- like many of her peers--dropping out of Swarthmore College. She made a pact to her art and dedicated her life to poetry. In the 1950's through the 1960's, di Prima performed her poems in popular Beat venues and associated with well known literary names including Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. She did, however, live differently from some of the quicidental Beat writers. She enbraced her femininity and wanted to balance her writing with her romantic and familial life. She used her womanhood as inspiration for her work and never saw her feminine power as a weakness in the male-dominated Beat movement. She would go on to publish several collections of poetry and memoirs (including Loba), serve as editor for literary magazines, and become an activist of body positivity.

There are few examples of digitalized editions of di Prima's work and nearly no online editions of Loba. The scarcity and lack of accessability, was one of my main motivators for creating this online edition. The original text that inspired this edition does differ from its didgital version. Some of these differences were intentional while others were due to technical limitations. It should be noted that the physical edition has page numbers, page breaks, and stylistic examples of indentation. The page numbers and breaks were removed in order to create a cleaner and smoother text for readers. The stylisic gaps were more difficult to replicate and would not have been the best representation of the author's style. Because of this, I decided to remove the irregular spacing from both of the edition's sections. Some of the illustrations, which were made esspecially for Loba by Josie Grant, were included in this online edition. Each illustration is viewable to the reader through the "Files" option located on the left-hand side of each text.