Philip Whalen Books

"In Philip Whalen's poetry, offhand compositional elegance and the deep amusement of wisdom combine to produce one of the pure delights of contemporary literature."

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

Why aren't you reading this?

ON BEAR'S HEAD is a staple in my library of 20th Century poetry collections. Too often included in the same breath with Snyder, Kerouac and the beats, Whalen's work deserves to stand alone. This new collection is a must for anyone who appreciates true literary invention.

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 a glorious 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.

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 the perfect companion to Jack Kerouac's classic novel, offering a wealth of information, fascinating stories, and gorgeous photographs about the world chronicled in that novel's pages. But it offers so much more -- a richer understanding of Gary Snyder & Philip Whalen, as well as their poetic work, and an in-depth look at the times & experiences that shaped all three writers. There are countless books about the Beats, many of them quite good indeed ... but this is surely one of the best. The author truly knows & loves his subjects, without being blinded by any need for glossy hagiography. It's as honest a book as you'll find about these three remarkable men & their times. A very enthusiastic recommendation!

In his first book, John Suiter has produced a work that contributes significantly to the literature on early development of the Beat literary movement and to understanding the disparate characters of Snyder, Whalen, and Kerouac. Using the common experience of all three men serving as fire lookouts in the Northern Cascades in the early to mid 1950's, the author evokes portraits of how each writer was influenced by wilderness and the isolation of a fire lookout, and how each used the experience in his work. Drawing from recent interviews with Snyder and Whalen and others who knew them during the early 1950's, from previously unpublished letters and journals, and from extensive close readings of all three writers, the author crafts a portrait of the evolution of a literary movement, of a wilderness ethic, and perhaps unintentionally, the devolution of Kerouac contrasted against the focus and dedication of Snyder and Whalen. The book is illustrated with photographs of the fire lookouts and their locales.

John Suiter's work on the founding fathers of Beat poetry and prose is a marvelous read. Suiter takes us along the trail through post war America and ties together the Beat poets, Jack Kerouac, McCarthyism, San Francisco and the North Cascades Forest Service Fire Lookout system of the 1950's. Imagine the poet/Zen Buddhist Gary Snyder being blacklisted from working for the Forest Service! Do you want to know how Jack Kerouac got the idea for his Dharma Bums work? What was it like spending a month and a half completely alone on top of a mountain in the Pacific Northwest, looking for the telltale smoke of a developing forest fire? Do you know what a "lightning stool" is, what you do with it and would you like to see a photograph of one? What was it like being at the famous Six Gallery poetry reading in 1955 when Allen Ginsberg first read "Howl"? If these questions interest you, or if you want to know about the origins of Beat writings-this is the book to get. Author Suiter launches the reader away through Old Mexico to visit with young Robert Mitchum as Christ in a glass coffin and William "Junky" Burroughs, up through Yosemite to camp with Kerouac and Snyder, a stop in San Francisco at City Lights Bookstore and Lawrence Ferlinghetti and finally Japan and Hozomeen, and the Void from Desolation. A delightful Masterpiece of fact and photographs!

"Poets on the Peaks" by John Suiter is a beautiful and insightful book. The text and pictures hold your hand through wonderful reminiscing with and about some of the greatest poets of our time. The landscapes that inspired the poetry that Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen and Jack Kerouac are famous for is staged perfectly throughout the book. It gives you a sense of time and place that makes you feel as if you were in those look out towers and you experienced that electric and quiet time. Learn, escape, and love with this book. It is well worth it!

Writer-photographer Suiter provides a literary portrait of Beat era poets Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, and Jack Kerouac in Poets On The Peaks, which centers around their early experiences as fire lookouts in the 1950s. As such, Poets On The Peaks provides a hard book to easily categorize: it covers beautiful Cascade Mountain scenes and peaks, fire lookouts, and literature and biography alike. The writings of these three juxtapose nicely with the photos and images, making this a recommended gift choice for the holiday season.

Stunning photography, intriguing stories, no-nonsense understanding.

The history of Kerouac's 'rucksack mode' culminating with his summer-camp stay atop Desolation Peak in the North Cascades, co-starring Gary Snyder & Philip Whalen.

Not to mention some nice details regarding the famous '55 Six Gallery poetry fete held in The City.

First, and foremost, John Suiter's exceptional photos and detailed biographical text in Poets on the Peaks are NOT, as the previous reviewer wrote, merely "The history of Kerouac's 'rucksack mode'...co-starring Gary Snyder & Philip Whalen." On the contrary, it is so much more than this; it is the story of the 50's Zeitigeist, when much of American cultural discourse expanded to include the more rugged, natural venacular of the West Coast. In this sense, Snyder (born and raised on the West Coast) and Whalen play the leading roles, in my opinion, while Kerouac plays a lesser role (though not slighted in the least by Suiter).

Don't get me wrong - I dig Kerouac. But this fecund book is more about the a cultural movement, say, the interaction between the old, established East Coast literary tradition (from which Kerouac was fleeing but could never quite break away) and the new, wildy independent West Coast tradition, headed up by the likes of Rexroth and Jeffers, than it is about any single poet.

Logistically, the photos are superb. Also, readers already familiar with Snyder, Whalen, and Kerouac will find new tidbits of information here, I think. Suiter simply KNOWS his subject, inside and out, from the mountains to the poets to the sacred Buddhist texts that so inspired them. For example, Suiter's description of Snyder's epiphany on reading the Diamond Sutra while hitch hiking was, for me, simply sublime; but to Suiter's credit, he presents such moments in an understated, matter of fact way.

Finally, I would like to offer a personal insight from the book. It seems to me that an individual can - and usually does, at some point in their life - come face to face with the universe, or in this case the Void so represented by the mountains, and go radically in one of two directions: flip out, like Kerouac, seeing the world as infinitely meaningless, and therefore sad (read: Desolation Angels); or imbue the emptiness, like Snyder (and the Buddhist tradition), with one's own meaning, seeing the world as infinitely playful and beautiful. Artistically speaking, neither response is inherently more correct, I would argue, but the latter is certainly healthier, I should think, judging by how long Snyder has been around (vs. Kerouac's alcoholic demise).

I cannot recommed this text enough.

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.

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 is direct and simple, moving and often very funny. Through Whalen's poetry, one can get inside his head, jump around and observe the firing of his synapses.

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

First the bad news: I could never get all the way through _Imaginary Speeches_, and what I did read I didn't like all that much. On the other hand, _You Didn't Even Try_ has been, for a long time, one of my favorite novels. It relates the story of a group of California friends, all intellectual or pseudo-intellectual types, and their shifting relationships over a period of about ten years. This is one of the most pleasantly paced novels I have ever read. Whalen has done a rare thing, which is to write a novel that unfolds so casually, so realistically, that you feel you could be reading about your own life. It's strange. I don't like Whalen's poetry, and _Imaginary Speeches_ is, in my opinion, more or less worthless. But _You Didn't Even Try_ is a small, quiet masterpiece.

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 get resolved at the end. One can tell he is a poet making a foray into prose writing.

It is certainly worth checking out, but it in no way compares to Whalen's wonderful poetry.