Philip Lamantia

Philip Lamantia

American poet, teacher
Date of Birth: 23.10.1927
Country: USA

Content:
  1. Philip Lamantia: A Surrealist and Beat Poet
  2. Surrealism and the Chicago Surrealist Group
  3. Literary Career
  4. Beat Aesthetics

Philip Lamantia: A Surrealist and Beat Poet

Early Life and Influences

Philip Lamantia was born on October 23, 1927, in San Francisco to Sicilian immigrants. He began writing poetry in elementary school and was briefly expelled from junior high for "intellectual depravity," specifically his fascination with Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft.

Surrealism and the Chicago Surrealist Group

At age 16, Lamantia encountered surrealism through retrospectives of Miró and Dalí at the San Francisco Museum of Art. He began writing surrealist poetry, recognizing its "purely revolutionary nature" without prior knowledge of surrealist theory. He soon left home to join the New York surrealist movement and was praised by André Breton as "a voice that appears once a century."

Literary Career

Lamantia's poems were published by André Breton in 1943 under the pseudonym VVV. His first book, "Erotic Poems," was printed in Berkeley in 1946, followed by "Ekstasis" after the famous "Six Poets at the Six Gallery" reading. City Lights later published "Selected Poems 1943–1966."

Beat Aesthetics

Like many of his fellow Beat writers, Lamantia's poetry exhibited a tension between "delight in reality and the omnipresent sense of suffering and horror inherent in human existence." He was unique in being both a full-fledged member of American surrealism and a harbinger and adherent of the Beat aesthetic.

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