Philip Whalen
Philip Whalen was an American poet and a significant figure in the Beat Generation, born on October 20, 1923, in Portland, Oregon. Coming from a working-class background, Whalen faced personal hardships, including the death of his mother and the challenges of military service in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II. After attending Reed College on the G.I. Bill, he became friends with prominent Beat writers, including Gary Snyder and Lew Welch, and was mentored by the esteemed poet William Carlos Williams. Whalen published his first commercial poetry collection, "Like I Say," in 1960, and gained wider recognition with the release of "On Bear's Head" in 1969.
Despite his literary contributions, financial stability eluded him, leading to a move to Japan in 1967, where he embraced Zen Buddhism. This spiritual practice deeply influenced his work upon his return to the U.S., where he became a monk at the San Francisco Zen Center. Whalen spent the latter part of his life there, ultimately serving as abbot until his retirement in 1996. He passed away on June 26, 2002. Whalen's unique blend of Western and Eastern literary traditions has garnered increased acclaim, particularly for its experiential style.
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Philip Whalen
Poet
- Born: October 20, 1923
- Birthplace: Portland, Oregon
- Died: June 26, 2002
- Place of death: San Francisco, California
Biography
Phillip Whalen was born in Portland, Oregon, on October, 20, 1923, to working-class parents. His father worked as a traveling salesman. Whalen’s father moved the family to The Dalles, Oregon, a small town south of Portland, when Whalen was two years old. He completed his education at local schools. After his mother died when Whalen was sixteen years old, he and his father moved back to Portland. In 1943, Whalen was drafted into the United States Army as a member of the Air Corps. Whalen spent the next three years serving in the western United States; he was discharged in 1946.
After his plans to attend the University of California to study Chinese failed, Whalen used the G.I. Bill to attend Reed College. At Reed, he developed friendships with Beat writers Gary Snyder and Lew Welch. In 1950 at Reed, Whalen met poet William Carlos Williams at one of Williams’s reading tours. Williams later became Whalen’s mentor. Whalen graduated from Reed with a B.A. in 1951.
Whalen roamed the West Coast aimlessly for the next five or six years, working odd jobs while staying with acquaintances. In 1955 or 1956, while working as a fire lookout, he penned one of his most famous poems, “Sourdough Mountain Lookout.” In 1956, at the request of Snyder, he participated in the famed Six Gallery poetry reading held in San Francisco, where he was able to meet the founding Beat writers. Afterward, Whalen was labeled as a prominent member of this literary circle. Nevertheless, he spent the second half of the 1950’s living meagerly by working odd jobs while publishing poems in numerous small-press magazines such as the Chicago Review and the Evergreen Review.
In 1960, Whalen published his first commercial book of poetry, Like I Say. His second book, Memoirs of an Interglacial Age, followed in the same year. Although these publications secured a larger audience for Whalen, his readership was still small. However, Harcourt Brace’s 1969 publication of On Bear’s Head, a major collection of Whalen’s poems, provided Whalen with a significantly larger audience. Sadly, these publications, as well as that of three minor novels, did not guarantee Whalen financial security.
Whalen’s decision to move to Japan in 1967 and in 1969 to teach English was primarily motivated by his erratic fortunes in the literary world. In Kyoto, Whalen’s artistic focus shifted as he practiced Zen Buddhism. In 1971, upon his return to the United States, Whalen received and accepted an invitation from the San Francisco Zen Center to become a permanent resident; he subsequently became a monk. Whalen spent his remaining years at this center, receiving his dharma transmission in 1987 and retiring in 1996 as the abbot. He died on June 26, 2002.
Whalen’s most notable achievement was his participation in the San Francisco Renaissance through the Beat writers. Moreover, Whalen’s experiential style of blending Western and Eastern traditions has increasingly received critical acclaim over the past decade of scholarship.