Crowded by Beauty

Download or read book Crowded by Beauty written by David Schneider and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2015-07-26 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Philip Whalen was an American poet, Zen Buddhist, and key figure in the literary and artistic scene that unfolded in San Francisco in the 1950s and Õ60s.ÊWhen the Beat writers came West, Whalen became a revered, much-loved member of the group.ÊErudite, 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 WhalenÕs journals and personal correspondenceÑparticularly with Ginsberg, Kerouac, Snyder, Kyger, Welch, and McClure ÑDavid 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 insiderÕs view of WhalenÕs 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 WhalenÕs life, focusing on his unique, eccentric, humorous, and literary-religious practice.