Lamantia’s life: Philip Lamantia was born in 1927 in San Francisco, son of Sicilian immigrants. He discovered Surrealism in the paintings of Dali & Miro and began writing visionary, ecstatic, Surrealist poems as a teenager. Soon after his first poems were published, Lamantia dropped out of school and moved to New York to associate with Andre Breton & other surrealists. He later returned to San Francisco, spent a good deal of his life traveling, became a self-taught polymath & died in San Francisco in 2005.
Lamantia & the Beats: Lamantia was one of five poets who read at the famous Six Gallery reading in San Francisco in 1955, where Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” burst upon the world. According to Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Lamantia’s stream-of-consciousness Surrealism was a formative influence on Ginsberg. His personal friendships & poetic influence on Beat & post-Beat poets, his residence in North Beach, his exploration of drugs & underground cultures, and his work combining poetry & jazz all mark Lamantia as Beat-affiliate.
Lamantia’s poetry: Poet & critic Jack Foley has written that “Lamantia’s poetry is extremely difficult to write about” -- naturally enough, as it is definitely Surrealist & often consists of visionary juxtaposition without regard to “making sense.” But the title of Foley’s review, “Riding the Marvelous,” gives the reader an inkling of the nature of Lamantia’s poems: they are ecstatic, often erotic, full of hyper-real sensation in a dream world, flights of sensual imagination.
Books by Philip Lamantia:
- Touch of the Marvelous (Four Seasons Foundation, 1974)
- Becoming Visible (Pocket Poets Series #39, City Lights Books, 1981)
- Meadowlark West (City Lights Books, 1986)
- Bed of Sphinxes (City Lights Books, 1997)
