Philip Lamantia said "we are not just poets"

[revolutionR]

Philip Lamantia the North Beach surrealist poet
said to me we are not just poets, when I talked
to him on the phone that night in 71'
he said a lot of things that just sort of unfolded
in a long monologue that encapsulated
the history of surrealism in about fifteen or so minutes

Philip was a poet, he never wrote a novel or nonfiction
his books were published by City Lights Books
he lived his whole life in San Francisco in North Beach
he did travel some, he was in Mexico for awhile
there is a story that he was stung by a scorpion
in Mexico and almost died, and he went to Oraibi village
in New Mexico, one of my favorite poems talks about

I had discovered a copy of his poems one night
at a woman's house I was drinking buddies with
up until that time I had read the Beat poets
and some French poets, Philip's poems had a magical
feeling to them I was attracted to, I had not encountered
surrealism yet, accept that the French poets I was reading
were considered precursors to surrealism

little did I know thar not long after that I would be talking
to Philip on a phone call in a phone booth, because my poet
friend happened to have gotten his phone number
when he went up to North Beach in S.F. to hear him read
but I never knew what he meant when he uttered
"we are not just poets" because as far as I know that is all
Philip Lamantia was....a surrealist poet that influenced
the Beat poets, I guess you could say he was eccentric

I saw Philip read a few times, one day I talked to him
in City Lights basement were he was working for Ferlinghetti
I showed him a poem of his I had in my wallet
and he corrected a few words in the poem
from the day I first read his poems, his poetry had a deep
effect on me, it is almost like I knew him from a past life
the things he said to me the night I talked to him on the phone
were always resonating, he really painted a picture to me
of what the surrealists were about, like when he said
"you cannot know what it was like to be a surrealist in the twenties"
but it was the way he dragged out the word,ssssuuurrrrrreeeeaaaalist