Philip Whalen (20 October 1923 – 26 June 2002) was a poet, a writer, a Zen Buddhist monk, and a key figure in the San Francisco Renaissance, one of the five readers at the Six Gallery reading in 1955.
Whalen was born in Portland, Oregon, spending the majority of his childhood in The Dalles before returning to Portland in 1941. While serving in the US Army Air Forces during World War II, Whalen was stationed in the US as a radio instructor. Reading and studying philosophy in his free time, he found interest in Eastern religions, centered on Vedanta. Upon release from the army in 1946, he visited the Vedanta Society in Portland, but did not pursue this very far, because of the expense of attending their countryside ashram. Tibetan Buddhism also attracted him, but he found it "unnecessarily complicated."
In the late forties Whalen attended Reed College on the GI Bill. There, he met and later boarded with fellow poets Gary Snyder and Lew Welch. A visit to the college by poet William Carlos Williams impressed the three, who went on to be influenced by Williams' colloquial poetic style. In 1952, Gary Snyder lent Whalen books on Zen by D. T. Suzuki which helped him to begin a lifelong association with Zen Buddhism.
Living at various places on the West Coast for the next several years, Whalen kept in contact with Snyder and Welch. Shortly after moving to San Francisco in 1955, he read poetry at the Six Gallery along with Snyder, Michael McClure, Allen Ginsberg and Philip Lamantia. In a semi-fictionalized account of the famous reading, which served to crystalize much of San Francisco Beat culture, Whalen was described as the character "Warren Coughlin" in Jack Kerouac's The Dharma Bums. Kerouac gave Whalen the name "Ben Fagan" in his novel Big Sur. These events and the fact Whalen's poetry was featured in Donald Allen's anthology The New American Poetry 1945-1960 made him an essential part of what came to be called the San Francisco Renaissance literary movement.
Whalen spent 1966 and 1967 in Kyoto, Japan, assisted by a grant from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a job teaching English. There, he practiced zazen daily, and wrote some forty poems and the novel.
He moved into the San Francisco Zen Center and became a student of Zentatsu Richard Baker in 1972. The following year, he became a monk. He became head monk of Dharma Sangha, in Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1984. In 1991, he returned to San Francisco to lead the Hartford Street Zen Center until forced by ill health to retire.
Whalen was born in Portland, Oregon, spending the majority of his childhood in The Dalles before returning to Portland in 1941. While serving in the US Army Air Forces during World War II, Whalen was stationed in the US as a radio instructor. Reading and studying philosophy in his free time, he found interest in Eastern religions, centered on Vedanta. Upon release from the army in 1946, he visited the Vedanta Society in Portland, but did not pursue this very far, because of the expense of attending their countryside ashram. Tibetan Buddhism also attracted him, but he found it "unnecessarily complicated."
In the late forties Whalen attended Reed College on the GI Bill. There, he met and later boarded with fellow poets Gary Snyder and Lew Welch. A visit to the college by poet William Carlos Williams impressed the three, who went on to be influenced by Williams' colloquial poetic style. In 1952, Gary Snyder lent Whalen books on Zen by D. T. Suzuki which helped him to begin a lifelong association with Zen Buddhism.
Living at various places on the West Coast for the next several years, Whalen kept in contact with Snyder and Welch. Shortly after moving to San Francisco in 1955, he read poetry at the Six Gallery along with Snyder, Michael McClure, Allen Ginsberg and Philip Lamantia. In a semi-fictionalized account of the famous reading, which served to crystalize much of San Francisco Beat culture, Whalen was described as the character "Warren Coughlin" in Jack Kerouac's The Dharma Bums. Kerouac gave Whalen the name "Ben Fagan" in his novel Big Sur. These events and the fact Whalen's poetry was featured in Donald Allen's anthology The New American Poetry 1945-1960 made him an essential part of what came to be called the San Francisco Renaissance literary movement.
Whalen spent 1966 and 1967 in Kyoto, Japan, assisted by a grant from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a job teaching English. There, he practiced zazen daily, and wrote some forty poems and the novel.
He moved into the San Francisco Zen Center and became a student of Zentatsu Richard Baker in 1972. The following year, he became a monk. He became head monk of Dharma Sangha, in Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1984. In 1991, he returned to San Francisco to lead the Hartford Street Zen Center until forced by ill health to retire.
The Poetry Foundation: Philip Whalen
Leslie Scalapino: Language as Transient Act, The Poetry of Philip Whalen
2012-07-15 22:26:08
The text content above is copyright ©2012 HFB.
The text content above is copyright ©2012 HFB.