Great Regulars: While the public presence of poetry increased,

however, much of [Philip] Whalen's work plumbed the subjective range of experience in language that was intimately located in his unique features of perception. With extended visits to Kyoto, Japan, a meager and simple stay for periods of time in Bolinas, the small arts community north of San Francisco, and prolonged study, practice, and initiation into the Zen Buddhist tradition as a priest, Whalen complicated the relationship between the personal and the public, the inner life and outer practice of it in words.

from Dale Smith: Bookslut: Marsupial Inquirer: "Beyond This Universe of Countless Words"

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