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Philip Lamantia (1927 2005) first came to prominence as a 15-year-old poet in 1943, when he was published in the avant-garde periodical View and, the following year, in Andre Breton's surrealist magazine in exile, VVV. He subsequently came under the influence of Kenneth Rexroth and participated in the famous 1955 Six Gallery reading, where Allen Ginsberg debuted ""Howl."" Often considered a poet of the Beat Generation, his association with City Lights began in 1967, when Lawrence Ferlinghetti published Lamantia's Selected Poems: 1943-1966 in the Pocket Poets Series. Following his next book, The Blood of the Air (1970), Lamantia published his remaining books with City Lights, including Becoming Visible (1981), Meadowlark West (1986), and Bed of Sphinxes (1997). He died in San Francisco, CA, in 2005.
“A voice that rises once in a hundred years.”—André Breton, cofounder of Surrealism “An American original, soothsayer even as Poe, genius in the language of Whitman, native companion and teacher to myself.”—Allen Ginsberg, author of Howl and Other Poems “You will probably be our greatest living poet since Whitman.”—Henry Miller, author of Tropic of Cancer “Philip Lamantia’s poems are about rapture as a condition. They are spiritual and erotic at the same time. Bright and dark, the enclosed polarities of devotion. St. Teresa and Rimbaud.”—Tom Clark, author of Truth Game “The blade-flash of Lamantia’s word lode strikes the owl stone, arcs to inspire. A quotidian American surrealism? Sudden array of Lemmy Cautions dashing through a hundred identical hotel doors. Visions for sure. Quick! Akhmatova in Lemuria!”—Clark Coolidge, author The Crystal Text “A man in command of a wild imagination . . . with a particular place in the ranks of the most important moderns.”—Library Journal
