Lew Welch: Biography

Beat Generation Poet and Author of Ring of Bone

Mar 1, 2008 Meg Nola

Brief biography of the poet and friend of Beat writers Jack Kerouac and Gary Snyder. Welch left a suicide note in 1971, then disappeared without a trace.

Early Years

Lew Welch was born on August 16, 1926 and moved with his mother to California following his parents' divorce. Even before the divorce and upheaval, however, Welch insisted that he had had a true mental breakdown as a toddler, and that he “went crazy, split…said ‘forget it!’’’ Welch always claimed that that early episode had to be “some sort of world’s record,” even among psychologically intense Beat Generation types.

Following a stint in the Air Force, Welch attended Oregon’s progressive-minded Reed College. At Reed, Welch met future Beat poets Gary Snyder and Philip Whalen, and he began to focus intently on his writing. His senior thesis was about American poet Gertrude Stein, and it greatly impressed another American poet, William Carlos Williams. Williams was encouraging and supportive of Welch, and Welch later made a trek eastward to visit Williams at his home in New Jersey.

Breakdown and Breakthrough

After a brief period of wandering, Welch was accepted into the University of Chicago and attempted to earn his Master’s degree there. Welch hated Chicago, though, describing the city as “a blind, red, rhinoceros” on the “beach of its Great Lake.” By 1951, Welch had had a full nervous breakdown. He left school, then went into analysis and psychotherapy.

Somewhat restored, Welch married and worked as an advertising copywriter. Around this time, Welch’s college friends Gary Snyder and Philip Whalen were gaining prominence as Beat poets, and Welch felt a renewed interest in writing his own poems again. Unfortunately, his entry into the San Francisco poetry world coincided with the end of his marriage and loss of his white-collar day job.

Cab Driving and Big Sur

To support himself, Welch then drove a cab in San Francisco. His experiences behind the wheel would inspire the poems “Taxi Suite,” wherein Welch describes his life as an urban charioteer:

When I drive cab

I am the hunter. My prey leaps out from where it

hid, beguiling me with gestures….

In 1959, Welch also met Jack Kerouac, author of the revolutionary Beat novel On the Road. Welch took to the road with Kerouac himself, driving Jack and his friend Albert Saijo from San Francisco back to New York. Welch would also appear in Kerouac’s subsequent novel Big Sur as the "lean rangy red head" Dave Wain, owner of a jeep named Willie and always ready for a good time.

Final Years and Vanishing Act

While Welch’s poetry was definitely gaining recognition, his continued troubles with drinking and depression undermined any successes. Furthermore, like many creative individuals, Welch was troubled by the need to earn a living while keeping his mind clear to truly express himself, and oftentimes felt that the intensity of his work moved him toward the fringes of society. Although by 1965 he had found a teaching position at the University of California’s Berkeley campus, he could not seem to find his way out of the old dark inner canyons.

In May of 1971, Welch went camping in the mountains around his friend Gary Snyder’s house and did not return. He had left a suicide note and gone off with a rifle – his intentions obvious, though his body was never found.

Lew Welch is included in many Beat Generation retrospectives or anthologies, and his book of collected poems, Ring of Bone, was first published in 1973.

Sources

• The Lew Welch Papers – Online Archive of California
• Lew Welch Poetry – Poemhunter.com
• The Portable Beat Reader (ed. Ann Charters, Viking Penguin, 1992)
• Big Sur (Jack Kerouac, Viking Penguin, 1992)

The copyright of the article Lew Welch: Biography in Poetry is owned by Meg Nola. Permission to republish Lew Welch: Biography in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Lew Welch