[New-Poetry] Collected Whalen

[jforjames at aol.com]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/12/02/RVJMT1SD2.DTL&type=books

The Collected Poems of Philip Whalen
Edited by Michael Rothenberg
WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY PRESS; 812 PAGES; $49.95
Being fat bothered Philip Whalen his entire writing life. Even after years of studying and practicing Zen Buddhism, he was beset by shame and self-consciousness, expressed in lines such as these:


"Epigram, Upon Himself"

People can forgive all my faults; They despise me for being fat.


Intriguingly, "being fat" apparently is not included among his faults, a distinction fine enough to presage further psychological revelations. But although Whalen does belabor certain chronic frustrations, he was not temperamentally inclined to make in-depth analyses. This predilection was somewhat reinforced by his Buddhist training. (He was abbot at San Francisco's Hartford Street Zen Center until his death in 2002.) Whalen generally reiterates rather than delves: "So fat my nose becomes invisible in profile,/ Ballooning cheeks"; "Worse to look at than my gross shape," and there are many more. He also castigates himself for other weaknesses: "How loyal have I been to myself?/ How far do I trust ... anything?/ I wonder 'self-confidence' vs. years of self-indulgence (am I feeling guilty?)." He certainly expresses misgivings about his logorrhea, a compulsion to pour forth words (and cartoonish doodles) that oddly parallels his gourmandizing compulsions: "A terrible mistake: 'Dots and squiggles justify/ The air and space I occupy.' " Justify, yes, with their humor and surprising insights, but they also crowd out and overshadow the rarer, wiser, just plain finer poems


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