He went to the St. Paul Art School,[1] and after World War II, attended Black Mountain College in North Carolina.
He returned there annually, spending summers fishing in Alaska through 1956 working salmon boats and organizing cannery workers.
[4] The bar featured poetry readings and jazz, and hosted the debut showing of artist Jay DeFeo's work.
In addition to Asian Studies scholars and seekers like Ananda Claude Dalenberg, Gia-Fu Feng, and Dick Price, many artists and writers resided there over the years, including Kyger and her future husband Gary Snyder, Albert Saijo, Lew Welch, Tom Field,[7] Lenore Kandel and Phillip Whalen.
Kerouac's biographer, Gerald Nicosia, wrote that East-West House "was no placid colony of self-contained workers," but instead, "a madhouse of Zen lunatics."