[6][7] Born in Iloilo, Philippines, Loewinsohn and his family relocated to Los Angeles in the United States in 1945.
[8] Loewinsohn credits this proximity to North Beach with his own development as a poet: "I graduated from Abraham Lincoln High School in 1955, with the Beat generation happening all around me.
I met all of the principals, heard Ginsberg, Snyder, Whalen and McClure read in Berkeley in April, 1956, and continued to write, mostly poetry, in that vernacular and (I thought) oracular mode.
[3] The poets who were most influential on his work included William Carlos Williams, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Duncan, Jack Spicer, Richard Brautigan, Philip Whalen, Gary Snyder, Charles Olson, Robert Creeley, Denise Levertov.
[8] In the early 1960s, Loewinsohn taught a poetry workshop at San Francisco State University Extension, an experience which made him realize that he wanted to be a teacher.