Preserving Fire: Selected Prose [Paperback]

Philip was a visionary like Blake, and he really saw the whole world in a grain of sand. Lawrence Ferlinghetti

An inspired consciousness set at full tilt in raging protest, kisses, prayers, blessings, and outraged demands. All from the deepest silence and farthest travel. Michael McClure

Preserving Firerecounts the life and thought of the Surrealist, Beat Generation, and San Francisco Renaissance poet Philip Lamantia through his fugitive prose works. Ranging from poetry to politics to mythology to dance, from manifestos to travelogues to wartime declarations of conscientious objection, these writings, expertly collected by friend and longtime City Lights editor Garrett Caples, offer a dynamic picture of Lamantias multifaceted intellectual life and the artistic movements he helped shape.

Philip Lamantia(19272005) was an influential Surrealist, Beat, and San Francisco Renaissance poet. He is the author of many books, includingErotic Poems, Touch of the Marvelous, Meadowlark West, Tau and Journey to the End, andThe Collected Poems of Philip Lamantia.

Garrett Caplesis the author of many books, most recentlyPower BalladsandRetrievals. He is the co-editor ofThe Collected Poems of Philip Lamantiaand is an editor at City Lights Books, where he curates the Spotlight Poetry Series.

Conscientious Objector's Statement

December 3, 1945

Selective Service Hdqrs.
Local Board No. 79
513 Valencia Street
San Francisco 10, Calif. To Whom It May Concern:

In order to clarify and extend my answers in the Form for Conscientious Objector, I am submitting the following statement which I hope will give you a more precise knowledge of my position and attitude.

For centuries the imperfection of man has concerned theologians, philosophers, and poets. This problem is a complex one, but in our time it has becl³)