Aram Saroyan Considers the Life and Zen of Philip Whalen

At Hyperallergic, Aram Saroyan takes time to consider Philip Whalen in light of David Schneider's recent biography Crowded by Beauty: The Life and Zen of Poet Philip Whalen (UC Press, 2015). Saroyan writes admiringly of Whalen's poetry and two novels, while noting his deep friendship with Beat writers Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. In looking at Schneider's treatment of Whalen, Saroyan is puzzled by the light treatment of the poet's writing, focusing instead on his life-long friendships and Zen teachings. More:

David Schneider was drawn to Whalen in the later phase of his life, and in an earlier book he recorded his table talk as a Zen monk. While Schneider’s biography has an easy, conversational tone and covers the main relationships and events of his subject’s life, for a reader to whom Philip Whalen is first and foremost a literary figure, the little attention paid to his published oeuvre is disappointing. In the short section about You Didn’t Even Try, for instance, the title of the novel isn’t mentioned. Nor is there the usual list, in a writer’s biography, of his books.

Instead the focus is on Whalen’s relationships with several other writers — chiefly Ginsberg, Kerouac, Gary Snyder and Joanne Kyger — with whom he maintained long friendships, corresponded, and about whom he often wrote in his journals and his poems. It’s as if Schneider correlates Whalen’s insider status with being at a remove from the main literary action of the day, when in fact his writing laid immediate and lasting claim to an appreciative audience of readers, editors and publishers, as his posthumously published Collected Poems and the publication of this biography affirm. So while he was clearly a devoted and valued friend to other writers, and a fine Zen teacher and companion to Schneider, this seems less than the first order of business when his work has yet to receive the fuller attention it deserves.

Read more at Hyperallergic, including some choice Whalen quotes and excerpts.