Philip Lamantia (1927 – 2005) first came to prominence as a 15-year-old poet in 1943, when he was published in the avant-garde periodical View and, the following year, in André Breton’s surrealist magazine in exile, VVV. He subsequently came under the influence of Kenneth Rexroth and participated in the famous 1955 Six Gallery reading, where Allen Ginsberg debuted “Howl.” Often considered a poet of the Beat Generation, his association with City Lights began in 1967, when Lawrence Ferlinghetti published Lamantia’s Selected Poems: 1943-1966 in the Pocket Poets Series. Following his next book, The Blood of the Air (1970), Lamantia published his remaining books with City Lights, including Becoming Visible (1981), Meadowlark West (1986), and Bed of Sphinxes (1997). He died in San Francisco, CA, in 2005.