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Tau & Journey to the End
Two long-lost volumes from the classic Beat period. Tau is Philip Lamantia’s mystical second collection of poems, originally slated for publication in 1955, but suppressed by the poet due to his evolving religious beliefs. Journey to the End contains the poems of the legendary John Hoffman (1928–1952), whose poems were read by Lamantia in 1955 at the 6 Gallery reading where Allen Ginsberg debuted “Howl.” Lamantia’s closest friend, a character in Jack Kerouac’s Dharma Bums , and the inspiration for two lines of “Howl,” Hoffman moved between San Francisco and New York before his death in Mexico at the age of twenty-four. This volume includes biographical notes and Lamantia’s commentaries on Hoffman’s poetry.
- GenresPoetry
150 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2008
2 people are currently reading
125 people want to read
About the author
Philip Lamantia
36 books33 followersPhilip Lamantia was an American poet and lecturer. Lamantia's visionary poems were ecstatic, terror-filled, and erotic which explored the subconscious world of dreams and linked it to the experience of daily life.
The poet was born in San Francisco to Sicilian immigrants and raised in that city's Excelsior neighborhood. His poetry was first published in the magazine View in 1943, when he was fifteen and in the final issue of the Surrealist magazine VVV the following year. In 1944 he dropped out of Balboa High School to pursue poetry in New York City. He returned to the Bay Area in 1945 and his first book, Erotic Poems, was published a year later.
Lamantia was one of the post World War II poets now sometimes referred to as the San Francisco Renaissance, and later became involved with the San Francisco Beat Generation poets and The Surrealist Movement in the United States. He was on the bill at San Francisco's Six Gallery on October 7, 1955, when poet Allen Ginsberg read his poem Howl for the first time. At this event Lamantia chose to read the poems of John Hoffman, a friend who had recently died. Hoffman's poetry collection Journey to the End (which includes the poems that Lamantia read at the Six Gallery) was published by City Lights in 2008, bound together with Lamantia's own Tau, a poem-cycle also dating from the mid-fifties. Tau remained unpublished during Lamantia's lifetime.
Nancy Peters, his second wife and literary editor, quoted about him, "He found in the narcotic night world a kind of modern counterpart to the gothic castle -- a zone of peril to be symbolically or existentially crossed."
The poet spent time with native peoples in the United States and Mexico in the 1950s, participating in the peyote-eating rituals of the Washo Indians of Nevada. In later life, he embraced Catholicism, the religion of his childhood, and wrote many poems on Catholic themes.
The poet was born in San Francisco to Sicilian immigrants and raised in that city's Excelsior neighborhood. His poetry was first published in the magazine View in 1943, when he was fifteen and in the final issue of the Surrealist magazine VVV the following year. In 1944 he dropped out of Balboa High School to pursue poetry in New York City. He returned to the Bay Area in 1945 and his first book, Erotic Poems, was published a year later.
Lamantia was one of the post World War II poets now sometimes referred to as the San Francisco Renaissance, and later became involved with the San Francisco Beat Generation poets and The Surrealist Movement in the United States. He was on the bill at San Francisco's Six Gallery on October 7, 1955, when poet Allen Ginsberg read his poem Howl for the first time. At this event Lamantia chose to read the poems of John Hoffman, a friend who had recently died. Hoffman's poetry collection Journey to the End (which includes the poems that Lamantia read at the Six Gallery) was published by City Lights in 2008, bound together with Lamantia's own Tau, a poem-cycle also dating from the mid-fifties. Tau remained unpublished during Lamantia's lifetime.
Nancy Peters, his second wife and literary editor, quoted about him, "He found in the narcotic night world a kind of modern counterpart to the gothic castle -- a zone of peril to be symbolically or existentially crossed."
The poet spent time with native peoples in the United States and Mexico in the 1950s, participating in the peyote-eating rituals of the Washo Indians of Nevada. In later life, he embraced Catholicism, the religion of his childhood, and wrote many poems on Catholic themes.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
November 5, 2013
Breath-taking. Simply brilliant. This has to be one of the best poetry books I have read. I am simply stunned. Here we have a beautiful collection of poetry from two poet friends, who share some similarities but are very talented in their own unique and special ways.
First, Lamantia's poems which make up the first collection called Tau are filled with beautifully vivid surrealistic symbolism and sometimes terrifying and startling images, ingeniously juxtaposed neatly alongside each other in the manner that a cubist or a painter like Miro would commit ideas to canvas. Quite amazing actually.
After I finished reading Lamantia's poems, I thought it cannot possibly get any better than this. Well I'm not sure if I would say Hoffman's poems are better but Journey to the End is also very, very good in a different way. Hoffman's style is very stark and terse which leaves the reader with very haunting but beautiful images. After reading about Hoffman's life, or should I say now legend, and what little we know of him, he reminded me a lot of Nick Drake - a young, very talented artist who did not expressly seek out fame but was content to delve into his own art privately and share it with people he knew and trusted. In Hoffman's case, he formed a great friendship with Lamantia, who recognized the talent of his introspective hipster friend.
There have been many accounts about how Hoffman died ranging from polio (apparently one account said he was found in a state of paralysis), to an overdose on peyotl to possibly mononucleosis. As the Mexican authorities cremated his body, I guess we will never know. Just like with Lew Welch's disappearance, I guess there will be endless speculation.
Anyway, both of these poets are outstanding. While I loved Hoffman's poems and am touched by Lamantia's gesture to put his poems to one side and read John's at the famous Six Gallery reading, I also think it would have been good for him to read some of his own poems, even if they did go against his newfound beliefs after his reconversion to Catholicism.
This style of poetry is very different from the regular beats and I wouldn't even classify Lamantia as a beat poet actually, even though he had many friends who were from that movement/generation. This book is is an absolute MUST if you like poetry. This book has also turned me on to other surrealist writers I would like to check out like Andre Breton and Lautreamont. Brilliant stuff!
First, Lamantia's poems which make up the first collection called Tau are filled with beautifully vivid surrealistic symbolism and sometimes terrifying and startling images, ingeniously juxtaposed neatly alongside each other in the manner that a cubist or a painter like Miro would commit ideas to canvas. Quite amazing actually.
After I finished reading Lamantia's poems, I thought it cannot possibly get any better than this. Well I'm not sure if I would say Hoffman's poems are better but Journey to the End is also very, very good in a different way. Hoffman's style is very stark and terse which leaves the reader with very haunting but beautiful images. After reading about Hoffman's life, or should I say now legend, and what little we know of him, he reminded me a lot of Nick Drake - a young, very talented artist who did not expressly seek out fame but was content to delve into his own art privately and share it with people he knew and trusted. In Hoffman's case, he formed a great friendship with Lamantia, who recognized the talent of his introspective hipster friend.
There have been many accounts about how Hoffman died ranging from polio (apparently one account said he was found in a state of paralysis), to an overdose on peyotl to possibly mononucleosis. As the Mexican authorities cremated his body, I guess we will never know. Just like with Lew Welch's disappearance, I guess there will be endless speculation.
Anyway, both of these poets are outstanding. While I loved Hoffman's poems and am touched by Lamantia's gesture to put his poems to one side and read John's at the famous Six Gallery reading, I also think it would have been good for him to read some of his own poems, even if they did go against his newfound beliefs after his reconversion to Catholicism.
This style of poetry is very different from the regular beats and I wouldn't even classify Lamantia as a beat poet actually, even though he had many friends who were from that movement/generation. This book is is an absolute MUST if you like poetry. This book has also turned me on to other surrealist writers I would like to check out like Andre Breton and Lautreamont. Brilliant stuff!
July 3, 2008
“You will probably be our greatest living poet since Whitman.”—Henry Miller, letter to Philip Lamantia, 1/26/55
The latest installment of the Pocket Poets Series presents two long-lost books from the classic Beat period. Tau is Philip Lamantia's mystical second collection of poems, slated for publication in 1955 but suppressed by the poet due to his evolving religious beliefs. Mysterious and austere, the poems of Tau are an essential addition to Lamantia's published work, documenting the period between his teenage surrealist debut Erotic Poems (1946) and the religious poems of Ekstasis (1959), also the period of his closest association with Kenneth Rexroth. Later in 1955, when he participated in the 6 Gallery reading where Allen Ginsberg debuted"Howl," Lamantia read none of his own work, instead reading the poems of his best friend, John Hoffman (1928-1952), a legendary Beat poet who died of unknown causes in Mexico at age 24. An archetype of the Beat-era hipster—tall, lean, goateed, and bespectacled—Hoffman is depicted along with Lamantia and others in "Howl," as well as in Kerouac's The Dharma Bums (1958). Yet despite its literary and historical importance, Hoffman's work has never before been published.
Journey to the End makes available for the first time all of Hoffman's surviving poems, an event for scholars and fans of Beat literature. Presented together in a single volume, Tau and Journey to the End are two of the most significant recent additions to the Beat canon. The volume also includes Lamantia's commentary on his friend's life and work, poems by Lamantia dedicated to Hoffman, and detailed biographical notes on both poets.
Praise for Tau and Journey to the End:
“Here are Philip Lamantia’s light-scattering jewels of the Fifties!”
—Michael McClure, author of Huge Dreams: San Francisco and Beat Poems
“The rediscovery of Tau is the literary equivalent of finding lost treasure. Alchemical gold––blood of pure imagination––courses through these lines by the magus of American poetry.”
—Andrew Joron, author of The Cry at Zero: Selected Prose
The latest installment of the Pocket Poets Series presents two long-lost books from the classic Beat period. Tau is Philip Lamantia's mystical second collection of poems, slated for publication in 1955 but suppressed by the poet due to his evolving religious beliefs. Mysterious and austere, the poems of Tau are an essential addition to Lamantia's published work, documenting the period between his teenage surrealist debut Erotic Poems (1946) and the religious poems of Ekstasis (1959), also the period of his closest association with Kenneth Rexroth. Later in 1955, when he participated in the 6 Gallery reading where Allen Ginsberg debuted"Howl," Lamantia read none of his own work, instead reading the poems of his best friend, John Hoffman (1928-1952), a legendary Beat poet who died of unknown causes in Mexico at age 24. An archetype of the Beat-era hipster—tall, lean, goateed, and bespectacled—Hoffman is depicted along with Lamantia and others in "Howl," as well as in Kerouac's The Dharma Bums (1958). Yet despite its literary and historical importance, Hoffman's work has never before been published.
Journey to the End makes available for the first time all of Hoffman's surviving poems, an event for scholars and fans of Beat literature. Presented together in a single volume, Tau and Journey to the End are two of the most significant recent additions to the Beat canon. The volume also includes Lamantia's commentary on his friend's life and work, poems by Lamantia dedicated to Hoffman, and detailed biographical notes on both poets.
Praise for Tau and Journey to the End:
“Here are Philip Lamantia’s light-scattering jewels of the Fifties!”
—Michael McClure, author of Huge Dreams: San Francisco and Beat Poems
“The rediscovery of Tau is the literary equivalent of finding lost treasure. Alchemical gold––blood of pure imagination––courses through these lines by the magus of American poetry.”
—Andrew Joron, author of The Cry at Zero: Selected Prose
July 19, 2024
A rather dense Pocket Poets entry of two volumes Philip Lamantia’s Tau and John Hoffman’s Journey to the End frankensteined together by both authors’ brief, yet impactful, friendship. Tau is abstract and disintegrating; Journey to the End is direct and assembles the former. The connective tissue between both is a reliance … or possible fascination … on all cosmological and divine symbolism to exact some sort of feeling of otherworldly belonging within the reader. I will also say that I read this faded as hell in a Waymo, so whatever incantations summoning the Catholic and Mayan deities contained with Tau and Journey to the End did not work and sadly left me with no charm.
November 29, 2018
Essential reading for anyone interested in American surrealist poetry, the Beats, surrealist poetry, and hallucinogenic writing. It's fantastically enjoyable, and a book I'll return to.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews