Happy Birthday, Philip Lamantia

Today is Philip Lamantia's birthday. Born in 1927, he would have been 90 years old today (he died in 2005).

Appearing in Kerouac novels (Francis DaPavia in The Dharma Bums and David D'Angeli in Desolation Angels), Lamantia was a poet whose work influenced Allen Ginsberg and other Beats. Lawrence Ferlinghetti said, "Philip was a visionary like Blake, and he really saw the whole world in a grain of sand." Lamantia read at the famous event at the Six Gallery in 1955 that many point to as kicking off the San Francisco poetry renaissance. (He didn't read his own work, but rather that of his dead friend, John Hoffman.)

You can read some of Lamantia's poetry here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/philip-lamantia. You'll encounter passages like this:

The winter web minute
flutters beneath the spider’s goblet
and the whores of all the fathers
bleed for my delight

Checking out Lamantia's poetry in honor of his birthday would be a Beat thing to do.

P.S. This is the anniversary of my mom's death in 2009, and I am just now connecting this date to Lamantia.