Philip Lamantia 1927 - 2005

Please pray for the soul of Philip Lamantia.

I have been avoiding writing about this sad news, because I had only heard about it second hand. While there is just about nothing worse for a journalist than running a retraction of an obituary, when the obituary is of a friend, you really would rather face the journalistic egg on the face than have the rumor turn out to be true.

However, I read the Chronicle obit, found here, and want to offer some personal reflections on the passing of a friend.

Of course Philip always held himself at arm's length from the title "Beat Poet." If he was proud of literary ties, it was his ties to Andre Breton and the surrealists. Sure, he still kept in touch with fellow Beats, but he had a more detached view of the whole thing.

I had seen this fellow at mass all the time. He had a friendly face with almost a Russian look. He helped take collection at daily mass, and always said "hello" when I saw him in front of the church or in a local caffe. I had no idea who he was until I was working the door at a church event, checking off the people who had prepaid for the dinner. This fellow who I had seen many times announced his name, as if it were just another Sicilian name that he would probably have to spell, and I was stunned. Philip Lamantia. One of my favorite poets of the Beat Generation. Wow!

For the first time I talked to him. Later in the evening Melanie was talking to him and let it slip that he was one of my favorite poets. "Oh, my. He doesn't really have very high standards, does he?" grumbled Philip. Just about every Sunday after that we would have lunch with Philip, followed by coffee. It turned out that he was a bit of a fan of bullfighting, although he had not been in years, so Philip became one of my bullfighting buddies, driving off to remote parts of the Central Valley to watch bulls and to eat pork (one of Philip's many charming eccentricities was the fact that he would not eat beef for fear of mad cow disease).

Philip, as noted in the Chronicle obit, was a great conversationalist. Somehow a mid-afternoon espresso would morph into a walk around North Beach, a quick bite, then, several hours after the first, "I should probably be heading back home" another round of espresso. Sometimes we would return from the bullfights at 1am and Philip would insist that I have a last cup of coffee so that the conversation (on anything from music to birdwatching to art to alchemy (a favorite topic) to San Francisco politics) could continue.

A mutual friend once described Philip as a "temporal vampire," telling me, "we were up til three am, and I had to teach today!" That is the way it was. Post-mass lunch could wind up in the middle of the night, without you even realizing it. Phone calls could last for hours, and even when he left a message on the machine, it seemed to stretch the capacity of the circuitry.

Being a Sicilian, Philip had a stubborn streak. I remember one conversation on color theory where he was ASTOUNDED that I said that Goethe's color theories were wrong. Eventually I got a concession, but with an escape clause having to do with alchemy.

Unfortunately Philip suffered from severe bipolar disorder. Lows could last for years, and were miserably low. Around the middle to end of the summer of 2001 he could tell that another low period was on the horizon. After mass he would head straight home. Then September 11 hit, and the low period set in with a vengeance.

The last time we saw Philip was the beginning of 2002. The nature of his depression was such that being around friends was the hardest thing he could do. "Mass is nearly unbearable," he said, almost in tears, "because who could possibly be a better friend than Jesus? Pray for me."

Once in a while neighbors would see Philip in a quick trip to the grocery store, and he always managed a quick and friendly "hello" but would not linger and would not say much.

We got the news of his passing from one of the friars, who had only heard second hand. There was nothing in the papers until Friday's obit. Part of me hoped that the news was wrong, that it was merely some Beatnik groupie who misheard something at City Lights.

The last thing that he published, besides Bed of Sphinxes: New and Selected Poems 1943 - 1993 were two poems that appeared in Communio as well as in Jubilation, a compilation of New Catholic Poetry edited by Stephen Ronan. "Ultimate Zone" was written on the Memorial of St. Pius X and is addressed to Pope John Paul II.

"You know," said Philip over one of countless cups of espresso, "I am pretty sure that the Holy Father reads Communio. I wonder what he thought of that poem."

Ultimate Zone

"the most modern European is you Pope Pius X"
Guillaume Apollinaire: Zone

Also around 1910 Apollinaire wrote: "The new spirit
which will dominate the poetry of the entire world
has nowhere come to light as it has in France."

It can not be said that you Pope John Paul II are the epitome of
post-modernism
since for two decades you have been one of its most responsible
critics
Now after so many changes so many revolutions so many
end worlds
poetry itself pronounced dead in these disunited states
whileyou head of the quanitatively greatest of world religions
travel this world as its supreme nonconformist
announcing humanity's ultimate terrestrial hope
"the civilization of love"
silently gathering a serene somehow possible/impossible
miracle
to overcome "the culture of death"
I imagine the cosmic heart of Omega point
breaking against the cutting edge of all pseudo-paradises
whoe technoscience conducts hedonic/euthanist man-un-kind
to some final evil nihil
garbage chemistry/morbid physics
and on to the latest insane project
the slavocracy of biogenic clones
demons from the petri dish
recklessly to shore up a pseudo-future
at the service of high-tech information machines
maintaining progreammed nihilism in continuous global progression
against all possible/impossible resistance
sure to rise from the least heart of humanity against
the rule of mechanical phallus
invisible central transhumanic idol
perceived on altars of neopagan death.

Posted by erik at March 13, 2005 1:45 AM | TrackBack