“Philip was a visionary like Blake, and he really saw the whole world in a grain of sand.” —Lawrence Ferlinghetti
“An inspired consciousness set at full tilt in raging protest, kisses, prayers, blessings, and outraged demands. All from the deepest silence and farthest travel.” —Michael McClure
Preserving Fire recounts the life and thought of the Surrealist, Beat Generation, and San Francisco Renaissance poet Philip Lamantia through his fugitive prose works. Ranging from poetry to politics to mythology to dance, from manifestos to travelogues to wartime declarations of conscientious objection, these writings, expertly collected by friend and longtime City Lights editor Garrett Caples, offer a dynamic picture of Lamantia’s multifaceted intellectual life and the artistic movements he helped shape.
Philip Lamantia (1927–2005) was an influential Surrealist, Beat, and San Francisco Renaissance poet. He is the author of many books, including Erotic Poems, Touch of the Marvelous, Meadowlark West, Tau and Journey to the End, and The Collected Poems of Philip Lamantia.
Garrett Caples is the author of many books, most recently Power Ballads and Retrievals. He is the co-editor of The Collected Poems of Philip Lamantia and is an editor at City Lights Books, where he curates the Spotlight Poetry Series.
Texts that elucidate the poetics of a major American poet at the center of the vibrant Beat and Surrealist movements.
Arvustused
"After decrying interpretation, Sontag notes that the world, our world, is depleted, impoverished enough. Away with all duplicates of it, until we again experience more immediately what we have. Thisexperiencing immediately what we have, and being open to that experiencestrikes me as the broad point of Lamantias work. It also seems a sound approach to reading Lamantias extensive body of poetry, and now his prose too. Which I recommend you do." Kevin O'Rourke, Kenyon Review
Muu info
Galleys available Co-op available National print campaign with galleys and review copies to outlets such as The San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Review of Books, and Bookforum National online and social media campaign with emphasis on literary organizations such as AWP, The Academy of American Poets, The Poetry Foundation, and others. Library market outreach through direct email campaigns. Academic market outreach through direct email campaigns.
| "Preserving Fire": An Introduction to the Prose of Philip Lamantia |
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Letter to Charles Henri Ford |
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1 | (4) |
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5 | (3) |
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8 | (1) |
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9 | (4) |
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13 | (3) |
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Conscientious Objector's Statement |
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16 | (5) |
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Letter from San Francisco |
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21 | (7) |
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Editorial from The Ark (1947) |
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28 | (3) |
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Conscientious Objector's Statement II |
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31 | (4) |
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Two Introductions to John Hoffman |
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35 | (6) |
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Hymns to St. Geryon (1959) by Michael McClure |
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41 | (1) |
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Biographical Note in The New American Poetry, 1945-1960 |
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42 | (1) |
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Vision and Instigation of Mescaline 1961 |
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43 | (3) |
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46 | (3) |
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49 | (2) |
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RevelatNewsPort by Raphael Kohler |
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51 | (11) |
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Notes Towards a Poetics of Weir |
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62 | (6) |
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Testament of the Inter-Voice |
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68 | (2) |
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Introduction to The Wounded Mattress (1970) by Sotere Torregian |
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70 | (2) |
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72 | (3) |
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Statement for Contemporary Poets of the English Language (1970) |
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75 | (2) |
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Between the Gulfs (with "By Elective Affinities, Then and Now") |
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77 | (2) |
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79 | (1) |
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80 | (2) |
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82 | (1) |
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The Oneiric Light of Alice Farley |
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83 | (2) |
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Poetic Matters (with "Notes Toward a Rigorous Interpretation of Surrealist Occultation") |
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85 | (16) |
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101 | (2) |
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Gerome Kamrowski: The Revelation of Night |
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103 | (1) |
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Radio Voices: A Child's Bed of Sirens |
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104 | (17) |
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121 | (3) |
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Alice Farley: Dancing at Land's End |
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124 | (2) |
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126 | (1) |
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Clark Ashton Smith Plaque Dedication |
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127 | (4) |
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131 | (1) |
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132 | (8) |
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Preface to Crossroads of the Other (1992) by Ken Wainio |
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140 | (3) |
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Program Note from a Reading at the Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church, April 1999 |
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143 | (2) |
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145 | (4) |
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149 | (2) |
| Bibliography |
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151 | |
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Philip Lamantia (19272005) was an influential Surrealist, Beat, and San Francisco Renaissance poet. He is the author of many books, including Erotic Poems, Touch of the Marvelous, Meadowlark West, Tau and Journey to the End, and The Collected Poems of Philip Lamantia.
Garrett Caples is the author of Power Ballads (Wave Books, 2016), Retrievals (Wave Books, 2014), The Garrett Caples Reader (1999), Complications (2007), and Quintessence of the Minor (Wave Books, 2010). He is the editor of Preserving Fire: Selected Prose (Wave Books, 2018) by Philip Lamantia, and the co-editor of The Collected Poems of Philip Lamantia (2013), Particulars of Place (2015) by Richard O. Moore, and Incidents of Travel in Poetry: New and Selected Poems (2016) by Frank Lima. He is an editor at City Lights Books and curates the Spotlight Poetry Series there. He was also a contributing writer to the San Francisco Bay Guardian. He has written articles and blogged for the Poetry Foundation and occasionally blogs for blogcitylights.com. He has a Ph.D. in English from the University of California, Berkeley, and lives in San Francisco.
