University of Connecticut. Special Collections Department Collector

Philip Whalen was born 20 October 1923, in Portland, OR, the son of Glenn Henry and Phyllis (Bush) Whalen. He attended Reed College (B.A., 1951) after having served in the U.S. Army Air Forces (1943-1946). He has been a poet, novelist, lecturer, and instructor since 1951 and was ordained a Zen Buddhist priest in 1973. He became the head monk, Dharma Sangha, Santa Fe, NM, in 1984.

He has received the Poets Foundation Award (1962), V. K. Ratcliff Award (1964), American Academy of Arts and Letters grant-in-aid (1965), Committee on Poetry grant (1968, 1970, 1971), and the Morton Dauwen Zabel Award from American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters (1985) for "progressive, original and experimental tendencies."