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• Big Zen Ha Ha (from Ahadada Books)

  If, as Leslie Scalapino suggests in the introduction to this book, Philip Whalen's poetry is about how his consciousness worked and utilized language, so that each poem is a gestalt of his thinking in process, then I think we must add that Big ZEN HA HA is present, ever-present in the articulate artifacts this poet of the hole-in-the-shoe and the shaven head (and I hear sadly mortal heart gunked up and out of incarnation by casual eating habits) left behind. Every turn of a trope ends in an undercutting of intention and meaning in the same way that the polyvalency of BIG ZEN HA HA (think "koans" here), undermines single meaning in every sacral utterance of Zen scripture. Of the See No Evil, Speak No Evil, Hear No Evil, Big Three of Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen and Lew Welch, we pretty much understand the hooks on which Snyder and Welch hung their tambourines, but it's Whalen who seems the reticent, self-effacing, hard to clearly define (just as Zen is), guy. He comes across sometimes as a New York School Poet (though lacking the sophistication of an Ashbery or O'Hara but including all their allusions to pop culture), and sometimes as a collagist of texts, in a kind of casual West Coast surrealism, but always as a 5-to-75 cent word nihilist, ready with a stick of BIG ZEN HA HA to shatter the prisms he stacks up so carefully before phenomena to liberate the pure light of the momentary mind. (And sometimes his verbal gestures remind me of the outsider texts, as well as the outsider stance of Harry Partch.) I'm still reading Whalen's Overtime news, hoping to stick around long enough to hear him whine for a toy early in his next incarnation on the streets of Tomorrow.

• Poetry as activity

  I don't know enough about Whalen to comment on the editing of this volume, but do appreciate having so many enjoyable poems in one place. I'm not naturally sympathetic to the poetry-as-activity (as opposed to poetry-as-accomplished-form) approach, to put it very coarsely, but somehow Whalen wins me over. All the Zen stuff isn't my cup of tea, but modern anxieties come through consistently - the stupidity of politics, the dubious worth of achievement, the possibility of speaking authentically, etc. This redeems for me the broad gestures of acceptance and wisdom. Also, for a self-professed vegetable Whalen is enormously well-read, and there's much pleasure in seeing his easy way with that kind of learning. This is a book that I continue to treasure. Highly recommended!

• Awesomenessss

  Wildly creative words and thoughts like a string of likes (ten more words required to be able to submit this).

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