Philip Whalen (October 20, 1923 – June 26, 2002) was a poet and a key figure in the San Francisco Renaissance and the Beat generation.
Born in Portland, Oregon, Whalen served in the US Army Air Corps during World War 2. He attended Reed College with Gary Snyder and Lew Welch and graduated with a BA in 1951. He read at the famous Six Gallery reading in 1955 that marked the launch of the West Coast beats into the public eye.
Whalen became a Zen Buddhist monk in 1973, becoming head monk, Dharma Sangha, in Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1984.
His books include Off the Wall: Interviews with Philip Whalen (1978), Enough Said: 1974-1979 (1980), Heavy Breathing: Poems, 1967-1980 (1983) Two Novels (1986), and Canoeing up Cabarga Creek: Buddhist Poems 1955-1986 (1995).
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