countercultural
shaman.
ascetic,
virtually
a
modern
He coined the term “erotic mysticism” and
wrote “River-root A syzygy”, 1956, in response to
Ginsberg’s Howl. After converting to Brother
Antoninus he was labelled by Rexroth in Barney
Rosset's Evergreen Review, partly because of his
own personal mystic, "probably the most
profoundly moving and durable of the poets of the
San Francisco Renaissance"(Reisman, 2012). He
was the beat monk of the San Francisco Bay area
who was principally known for the erotic mythos
of his seminal work “the rose of solitude”. Everson
acknowledged his own profound ability to be
“transcendentally himself” and to recognize
prophetic nature in other souls. This is a shamanic
feature to his life which is echoed in his poetry. In
“dust and the glory” Everson summons an
enduring posthumous image of the magnanimous
Attila who “lived like a crimson arc” and “ran like
the wolf”. As Di Prima summons Loba, Everson
summons Attila, the great guardian spirit or
saviour. In “we in the fields” the reader is again
spectator and stoically subject to the fact that
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