1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910788108003321

Autore

Schneider David <1951->

Titolo

Crowded by beauty : the life and Zen of poet Philip Whalen / / David Schneider

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Oakland, California : , : University of California Press, , 2015

©2015

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (351 p.)

Disciplina

813/.54

Soggetti

Beat generation

Poets, American - 20th century

Zen Buddhists

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Preface -- Brief Chronology -- 1. Reflection in Friends -- 2. Banjo Eyes: Whalen and Ginsberg -- 3. Buddha Red Ears: Whalen and Kerouac -- 4. Kalyanamitra: Whalen and Snyder -- 5. Your Heart Is Fine: Whalen and Kyger -- 6. Hail Thee Who Play: Whalen and McClure -- 7. Early: 1923-1943 -- 8. Forced Association: Army Life, 1943-1946 -- 9. Reed's Fine College: 1946-1951 -- 10. Solvitur Ambulando: 1959-1971 -- 11. Japan, Bolinas, Japan, Bolinas: 1965-1971 -- 12. New Years: Whalen and Baker, Zen Center -- 13. An Order to Love: Ordination -- 14. Rope of Sand: Santa Fe and Dharma Transmission -- 15. RSVP: Hartford Street, Decline and Death -- Acknowledgments -- Notes -- Primary Sources -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

Philip Whalen was an American poet, Zen Buddhist, and key figure in the literary and artistic scene that unfolded in San Francisco in the 1950's and '60's. When the Beat writers came West, Whalen became a revered, much-loved member of the group. Erudite, shy, and profoundly spiritual, his presence not only moved his immediate circle of Beat cohorts, but his powerful, startling, innovative work would come to impact American poetry to the present day. Drawing on Whalen's journals and personal correspondence-particularly with



Ginsberg, Kerouac, Snyder, Kyger, Welch, and McClure -David Schneider shows how deeply bonded these intimates were, supporting one another in their art and their spiritual paths. Schneider, himself an ordained priest, provides an insider's view of Whalen's struggles and breakthroughs in his thirty years as a Zen monk. When Whalen died in 2002 as the retired Abbot of the Hartford Street Zen Center, his own teacher referred to him as a patriarch of the Western lineage of Buddhism. Crowded by Beauty chronicles the course of Whalen's life, focusing on his unique, eccentric, humorous, and literary-religious practice.