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Like his college roommate Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen took both poetry and Zen seriously. He became friends with Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and Michael McClure, and played a key role in the explosive poetic revolution of the '50s and '60s. Celebrated for his wisdom and good humor, Whalen transformed the poem for a generation. His writing, taken as a whole, forms a monumental stream of consciousness (or, as Whalen calls it, "continuous nerve movie") of a wild, deeply read, and fiercely independent American-one who refuses to belong, who celebrates and glorifies the small beauties to be found everywhere he looks. This long-awaited Selected Poems is a welcome opportunity to hear his influential voice again. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Poetry as activity
I don't know enough about Whalen to understand the editing of this volume, but do appreciate having so many enjoyable poems in one place. I'm not naturally sympathetic to the poetry-as-activity (as opposed to poetry-as-accomplished-form) approach, to put it very coarsely, but somehow Whalen wins me over. All the Zen stuff isn't my cup of tea, but you can feel modern anxieties coming through - the stupidity of politics, the dubious worth of achievement, the possibility of speaking authentically, etc. This redeems for me the broad gestures of acceptance and wisdom. Also, for a self-professed vegetable Whalen is enormously well-read, and there's much pleasure in seeing his easy way with that kind of learning.

Big Zen Ha Ha (from Ahadada Books)
If, as Leslie Scalapino suggests in the introduction to this book, Philip Whalen's poetry is about how his consciousness worked and utilized language, so that each poem is a gestalt of his thinking in process, then I think we must add that Big ZEN HA HA is present, ever-present in the articulate artifacts this poet of the hole-in-the-shoe and the shaven head (and I hear sadly mortal heart gunked up and out of incarnation by casual eating habits) left behind.Every turn of a trope ends in an undercutting of intention and meaning in the same way that the polyvalency of BIG ZEN HA HA (think "koans" here), undermines single meaning in every sacral utterance of Zen scripture.Of the See No Evil, Speak No Evil, Hear No Evil, Big Three of Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen and Lew Welch, we pretty much understand the hooks on which Snyder and Welch hung their tambourines, but it's Whalen who seems the reticent, self-effacing, hard to clearly define (just as Zen is), guy.He comes across sometimes as a New York School Poet (though lacking the sophistication of an Ashbery or O'Hara but including all their allusions to pop culture), and sometimes as a collagist of texts, in a kind of casual West Coast surrealism, but always as a 5-to-75 cent word nihilist, ready with a stick of BIG ZEN HA HA to shatter the prisms he stacks up so carefully before phenomena to liberate the pure light of the momentary mind. (And sometimes his verbal gestures remind me of the outsider texts, as well as the outsider stance of Harry Partch.) I'm still reading Whalen's Overtime news, hoping to stick around long enough to hear him whine for a toy early in his next incarnation on the streets of Tomorrow.

The Brainy Beat
I didn't know much about Whalen's poetry until he died this year, but the terrific memorial reading for him here in San Francisco drove me to "Overtime" and man, what a find. The Beats were more learned than the 'first thought, best thought' aesthetic suggests, and Whalen's poems balance religion, philosophy and cranky Zen insight with a casual, conversational Americanese in a way few of his more famous contemporaries could touch. His poems draw from a deep past that embraces everything from ancient Chinese verse to classical music, but insist that it walk down the street in T-shirt and jeans. Whalen spent the last three decades of his life at the San Francisco Zen Center--his particular brand of Buddhism, so generous to human failings (starting always, comically, with his own) and never, ever doctrinaire, has to be one of the most attractive spins on Eastern religion I've read. Whalen was in it and of it, never above it. He gives the moment plenty of wiggle room in his writing, so that cats, friends and silly thoughts can all stray into the poems without being shoo'd out for art. Whatever Beat meant, Whalen shows it in about its best light. Poetry's a little thinner and more straight-laced with him gone.

This is poetry!
This isn't some crumbling, dry keeper of the hallowed institution that issometimes "poetry."It is sad that Whalen's works are so hard tocome by these days.

Why aren't you reading this?

Run to your nearest bookseller and demand this book!
Philip Whalen is a national treasure, one of our most important living poets. This collection, masterfully assembled by Michael Rothenberg, is a great place to start if you're not familiar with Whalen's work, and aglorious visiting ground for those of us who have already discovered him.Don't let the word POETRY dissuade you. You will not be bored for a minute. ... Read more

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Zen-poet Whalen's legendary first novel from 1956. The equivalent of "The Dharma Bums," it also includes Kerouac and Snyder as characters, but is much more expansive, poetic and philosophical than other Beat-era novels. ... Read more

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One 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. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The Beat Louvre
This remarkable collection gathers the full range of work from one of the 20th century's most unpretentious experimenters with the form and matter of poetry. Granted, 800 pages is a lot of anyone, even a poet as great and under-read as Whalen, and the gain in information comes with a corresponding loss in shape. Whalen's refusal to separate writing from the business-as-usual work of living gives his poems their special tension--the "nerve movie" that's at once transcription of mind moving and competitive bid to be Art--but also invites sameness and slack, a problem more apparent here than in previous collections, especially On Bear's Head, where the batting average dazzles. Reference-wise though, having this book is like owning a wing of the Beat Louvre, and I wouldn't trade it for all of Mexico City and its blues. ... Read more

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Poetry. Memoir. Essays. CONTINUOUS FLAME is a lovely collection of work honoring the well-known Beat poet and Buddhist priest Philip Whalen. The book contains over 50 rare photographs of Whalen along with poems, anecdotes and reflections from friends and colleagues. Contributors include Joanne Kyger, Gary Snyder, Alice Notley, Anne Waldman, Robert Creeley, Diane Di Prima, David Meltzer, Michael McClure, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Clark Coolidge, Donald Guravich, Bill Berkson, Leslie Scalapino, Abbie Winson, Robert Winson, Larry Keenan, Allen Ginsberg, Gordon Ball, Rob Lee, Steve Wilson, Christopher Felver, John Suiter and others friend ad colleagues of Philip Whalen. ... Read more

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French Historians 1900-2000: The New Historical Writing in Twentieth-Century France examines the lives and writings of 40 of France’s great twentieth-century historians.

• Blends biography with critical analysis of major works, placing the work of the French historians in the context of their life stories
• Includes contributions from over 30 international scholars
• Provides English-speaking readers with a new insight into the key French historians of the last century

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Philip Larkin and English Poetry is a practical criticism of Larkin's poetry which discusses the poet's views on poetry as they are made visible in his prose writings and his interviews, Larkin's affinities with a series of other English poets (including Dr Samuel Johnson, D.H.Lawrence and the Imagists, and Ted Hughes, Thom Gunn and R.S.Thomas) which have been overlooked by previous critics are referred to, and Terry Whalen provides close readings of the individual poems that will appeal to both the first-time reader of Larkin's works and those who are seasoned readers of England's finest poet. Whalen stresses the depth and integrity of the 'other' Larkin, the poet of beauty and of witness who explores the world of observation with a hunger for meaning and a sense of wonder which earlier reviewers and critics have tended to ignore. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A wonderful book of poetry
Heavy Breathing is a collection from one of the most original poets from the Beat world. Although affiliated with the beats, Whalen's poetry differs significantly from that of Kerouac, Ginsberg, or Gary Snyder. The poetry isdirect and simple, moving and often very funny. Through Whalen's poetry,one can get inside his head, jump around and observe the firing of hissynapses.

It is a wonderful collection of previously published poems.Four works constitute this book: Severance Pay, Scenes of Life at theCapital, The Kindness of Strangers, and Enough Said. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

At least check it out
I am a big fan of Philip Whalen's poetry, so I was very interested in this book, one of his few prose publications.

It is rather interesting, yet the narrative constantly jumps around and nothing really seems to getresolved at the end. One can tell he is a poet making a foray into prosewriting.

It is certainly worth checking out, but it in no way compares toWhalen's wonderful poetry. ... Read more