Here a deep terror like Artaud’s theatre of
cruelty hangs over the reader’s imagination.
However this is really the Jungian mask of the
trickster coming to the fore, the signs may signal
“death” but the Solomon who liaised with Corso
and was knowledgeable about politics, French
existentialism, Proust, Tristan Tzara and Jean
Genet is still very much alive. In “Life is Life” we
get the real sense of a beat poet who can never
perceive “the whole overriding master design”, a
marginal figure who is angry but acceptant of the
world and his place therein. A man of little faith
who reads Kierkegaard and plays scrabble. After
all “Life is Life”. Carl Solomon is the shamanic
trickster if we care to share the joke!
III
Another famous beat is Philip Whalen who
read at the famous six gallery meeting. He was
roommates with Snyder and Welch. Critic Michael
Davidson states that his poetry is reminiscent of
18 th -century poets John Dryden and Alexander
Pope. Other influences include Olson, Stein,
Stevens, Williams, Su Tung-p'o and Zen master
Dogen (Hemmer, 2007). Whalen’s singular style
and personality is both honest and visionary
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