Philip Lamantia was born on October 23rd, 1927 in San Francisco, California. He discovered Surrealism at an early age and began writing from there on in. Not long after his discoveries, he traveled to New York to meet with Andre Breton, who liked what he read and began publishing Lamantia's works. While in the Big Apple, Lamantia met the likes of Ginsberg and Carl Solomon and some of the other characters who would later help form the Beat Generation. He was one of the poets involved in the Six Gallery Readings in San Francisco in October 1955, but instead of reading his own works, he read those of his friend John Hoffman who had died in Mexico of an apparent peyote overdose only a short time before the event.
Diane DiPrima Carolyn Cassady Gregory Corso Gary Snyder Kenneth Rexroth Lucien Carr
Michael McClure John Clellon Holmes Bob Kaufman Jan Kerouac LeRoi Jones Bob Dylan
Charles Bukowski Anne Waldman Joanne Kyger Herbert Huncke
Peter Orlovsky Philip Whalen
Home
