Preserving Fire

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 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.

• Contents "Preserving Fire":An Introduction to the Prose of Philip LamantiaLetter to Charles Henri Ford Surrealism in 1943 The Tchelitchew Cover Young Poets An American Opinion Conscientious Objector's Statement Letter from San Francisco Editorial from The Ark (1947) Conscientious Objector's Statement II Two Introductions to John Hoffman Hymns to St. Geryon (1959) by Michael McClure Biographical Note in The New American Poetry, 1945–1960 (1960) Vision and Instigation of Mescaline 1961 The Beat Generation Mental Cement RevelatNewsPort by Raphael Kohler Notes Towards a Poetics of Weir Testament of the Inter-Voice Introduction to The Wounded Mattress (1970) by Sotère Torregian Philip Lamantia Statement for Contemporary Poets of the English Language (1970) Between the Gulfs (with "By Elective Affinities, Then and Now") Vital Conflagrations The Crime of Poetry Harmonian Research The Oneiric Light of Alice Farley Poetic Matters (with "Notes Toward a Rigorous Interpretation of Surrealist Occultation") Invisible Webs Gerome Kamrowski: The Revelation of Night Radio Voices: A Child's Bed of Sirens The Future of Surrealism Alice Farley: Dancing at Land's End Marie Wilson Clark Ashton Smith Plaque Dedication Address Statement on "Howl" Letter from Egypt Preface to Crossroads of the Other (1992) by Ken Wainio Program Note from a Reading at the Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church, April 1999 Surrealism & Mysticism Statement Bibliography by Steven Fama'

"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.’ This—experiencing immediately what we have, and being open to that experience—strikes me as the broad point of Lamantia’s work. It also seems a sound approach to reading Lamantia’s extensive body of poetry, and now his prose too. Which I recommend you do."—Kevin O'Rourke, Kenyon Review