The Collected Poems of Philip WhalenOne of the most path-breaking and creatively radical poets of the San Francisco Renaissance, Philip Whalen was part of the 1955 Six Gallery reading where the West Coast Beat movement famously began. Working alongside Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, and Jack Kerouac, Whalen developed a conversational and visually unorthodox style that is unique in contemporary poetry. His lifelong engagement with the impermanent and sensuous, concerns deepened by his commitment to Zen Buddhism, are on rich display here, along with his warm humor and original illustrations. This Collected Poems rightfully places Whalen among the foremost poets of his time, offering readers a truly major body of American poetic work. |
Contents
IV | 1 |
In the Palace of the Heart | 13 |
The Rose Festival Parade | 26 |
Sourdough Mountain Lookout | 40 |
Invocation Dark Sayings in the Tibetan Style | 53 |
Give Up | 64 |
Soufflé | 70 |
For C | 76 |
EAMD | 393 |
skooliebau | 406 |
April Showers Bring Rain? | 438 |
TO | 445 |
Giant Sequoias | 469 |
The Task Rejected | 482 |
Sad Song | 484 |
Above the Shrine | 497 |
An Open Letter to Robert Duncan | 83 |
158 | 89 |
Sincerity Shot | 95 |
Unsuccessful Spring Poem | 101 |
ix58 | 107 |
Think of Mountains | 113 |
Fond Farewell to the Chicago Review | 114 |
Return to San Francisco | 127 |
Poem for a Blonde Lady | 141 |
New York City | 154 |
Palace Café | 163 |
The Death of Boston | 176 |
To Ruth | 189 |
hoist great blocks of language into place | 202 |
Vector Analysis | 228 |
my FBI my peace my war | 230 |
One of My Favorite Songs Is Stormy Weather | 237 |
To the Muse | 243 |
There It Goes | 249 |
Hum | 255 |
Applegravy | 270 |
The Gallery Mill Valley | 274 |
Spring Musick | 280 |
xii63 from 7iii63 | 286 |
Night and Morning Michaelangelo | 292 |
Expansion | 302 |
The San Francisco Symphony Orchestra | 309 |
Epigram | 315 |
Oh Yes Vancouver | 318 |
Raging Desire c | 324 |
Somebody Elses Aesthetic | 330 |
St Francis Lobbies Allen G | 336 |
Last Part of an Illustrated Childrens | 342 |
Some Kind of Theory | 344 |
The Lotus Sutra Naturalized | 357 |
Trinity Sunday 1964 | 372 |
The Chain of Lakes | 375 |
Ten Titanic Etudes | 510 |
I keep hunting through the house | 523 |
NEFAS | 532 |
Grace before Meat | 546 |
The Evasive Answer | 563 |
Duerdens Garage Stinson Beach | 569 |
Bill Brown | 587 |
Walking beside the Kamogawa Remembering Nansen | 648 |
Life at Bolinas The Last of California | 655 |
Not Heavily | 661 |
Public Opinions | 667 |
Bobbie Spontaneously | 669 |
Minuscule Threnody | 682 |
Message | 695 |
The Talking Picture | 702 |
Organized Crime | 708 |
Dorje Quandary | 714 |
Somebody Elses Problem Bothers Me | 720 |
Brutal Landscape | 726 |
The Congress of Vienna | 730 |
Back to Normalcy | 736 |
Wandering Outside | 742 |
Treading Water | 748 |
Whats New? | 754 |
Welcome Back to the Monastery | 757 |
What Are You Studying These Days? | 770 |
For Shunko Enjo | 783 |
Thanksgivening | 786 |
By Accident or Design | 792 |
Friday | 798 |
Song to Begin Rōhatsu 273 | 805 |
Calendar Notes and Appendices | 817 |
Essays and Prefaces by Philip Whalen | 827 |
from Highgrade | 834 |
Biography and Bibliography | 846 |
| 861 | |
Common terms and phrases
ALLEN GINSBERG ARAM SAROYAN baby beautiful better birds blang blossoms blue brain Clark Coolidge clothes clouds coffee cold color crystal dark dead death delight DIANE DI PRIMA door dream edge everything eyes fake fall father feel feet fire flowers Fred Merkel friends garden Gary Snyder glass gold green hair hand head hear heaven heavy imagine inside jewel John Wieners Kamo River keep Kyoto lady leaves Lew Welch light live look Ma Perkins MICHAEL MCCLURE mind moon morning mountains moving nasturtiums never night PHILIP WHALEN pleasure plums poem poet poetry rain remember rock San Francisco sing sleep song sound stars stone street Tassajara tell there's things tree wait walk wall watch What's wind window writing yellow