Beat-era poet Alden Ewing Van Buskirk earned a BA at Dartmouth University and completed graduate course work at Washington University in St. Louis. Influenced by the work of poet Arthur Rimbaud, Van Buskirk composed poems tracking the mind’s journey through altered states to explore conceptions of selfhood and connection. His poems were collected posthumously by David Rattray and published as the collection Lami (1965), with an introductory note by poet Allen Ginsberg. Van Buskirk lived in Oakland prior to his death at the age of 23 from a rare kidney disease. He is buried in the Evergreen Cemetery in Rutland, Vermont.