Philip Whalen described poetry as the "graph of the mind's movement." He writes in a Zen Buddhist contemplative, empathetic view on the world. The poem the Slop Barrel Slices of the Paideuma for all Sentinet Beings.is a zen poem that captures the moment in between time where change is inevitable.Paideuma means "a people's whole congeries of patterned energies from the ideas down to the things they know in their bones."* He attempts to objectively see the world as it really is. His poems allow us a glimpse of a frozen moment in a period of flux.
Hugh Kenner, The Pound Era, Berkley, Calif., 1971, p. 507.
My own attempt to write a Haiku to Philip Whalen:
9AM Pacific University
Lumber Truck Braking, One Morning at Pacific. I'm Sleep walking.
