Father Beat. Follow the beat.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti is more than a poet, more than a man. He is the emblem of a social movement that moved the nation, the support behind the beat generation and a continuous stream of conscious thinking provoking generations to wake up for decades now. Ferlinghetti constantly packs his beliefs and practices as anarchist, radical, and rebel into his work as writer, publisher, bookstore owner, and painter. Everything that has come into contact with Ferlinghetti has been permeated with his essence as a human being.
Not only did he move the nation with his profound thought provoking literature, but also his famous bookstore City Lights sparked the ignition of the Beat Movement, an American social and literary movement of the 1950’s. Alongside major figures of the Beat Movement, such as Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, this movement “advocated a kind of free, unstructured composition in which the writer put down his thoughts and feelings without plan or revision—to convey the immediacy of experience—an approach that led to the production of much undisciplined and incoherent verbiage on the part of their imitators” (Encyclopedia Brittanica). His poetry like most of his art and career is a comment on the political situation and the human situation of America and the greater scope of the world throughout the past half century. Ferlinghetti’s poetry was part of the post-World War II movement and was part of the 50’s “perennial avant-garde imperative to reinvigorate literary culture by destroying the hackneyed and moribund” (Watson). As David Emblidge states, Ferlinghetti’s “experience in the military in WWII had made him a radical. Ferlinghetti commanded a landing boat on D-Day in Europe and then was sent to Japan. He was among the first to see the devastation wrought by the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki; his reaction, arising from his outrage, inspired a political shift toward anarchism and a hatred for the entire military-industrial complex” (31).
This onset of radical ideals and beliefs grouped Ferlinghetti alongside Kenneth Rexroth, Philip Lamantia, Gary Snyder, Michael McClure, and Bob Kaufman all whom were like-minded writers living in San Francisco. Ferlinghetti became known as a rebel poet who was a part of The San Francisco Renaissance in the 1950’s. Most of the rebel poets of the 1950’s were concerned with questioning the normality and conformity of the time. Their style was one that was studded with “the bardic spoken voice, links to jazz and spontaneous composition, open verse forms and rhythms, derangement of the senses as a stimulus to creativity, confessional candor, and content that embraced political issues, Buddhism, and the natural environment” (Watson). It was this movement that pushed the boundaries of poetry and the socially accepted norms of the time.
Ferlinghetti forever changed the way society views poetry as he sought to make poetry an engaging oral art. He is author to more than thirty books of poetry, but his poetry collection A Coney Island of the Mind is one of his most popular and most translated work of poetry. It is a book composed of three sections, “A Coney Island of the Mind”, “Oral Messages”, and “Poems from Pictures of the Gone World” which was his first work of poetry. “A Coney Island of the Mind” is 29 poems long and is followed by “Oral Messages” which are a collection of 7 poems meant to be read aloud to the accompaniment of jazz. In “A Coney Island of the Mind” Ferlinghetti writes poems as a conservative post-war piece designed to evoke an element of singsong jazz; embedded with references to painters and writers alike, mentioning names like Franz Kafka to Picasso. Ferlinghetti wished to embody the anarchic chaos which he felt in this dislocated time and hoped to persuade people to living a life to their own accord. The direction in which he wished his readers to understand, was his intention for the piece to be viewed as art. Not only was he bringing poetry into new fields of social and self-expression, but Ferlinghetti also “enlarged his stance and developed major themes of anarchy, mass corruption, engagement, and a belief in the surreality and wonder of life” (Smith). A Coney Island of the Mind challenges the way readers think and interpret poetry, and often resembles a lyric. Each poem “sparkles, sings, goes flat, and generates anger or love out of that flatness as it follows a basic motive of getting down to reality and making of it what we can” (Smith). His poems still “resonate, as they will continue to resonate, with a joyful anti-establishment fervor that beats a rhythmic portrait of humanity”. Beat poets sought to liberate poetry from academic preciosity and bring it “back to the streets.”
Located at the beginning of the book are the words which read, “The title of this book is taken from Henry Miller’s Into the Night Life. It is used out of context but it expresses the way I felt about these poems when I wrote them—as if they were, taken together, a kind of Coney Island of the mind, a kind of circus of the soul” (Ferlinghetti, 8). In this collection we see Ferlinghetti’s witty, anti-establishment, radical voice come through in every line.
The first section of the book is filled with poems that balance ordinary life to religious commentary to political commentary to the historical. Ferlinghetti’s voice in these poems is young and filled with satirical wit and mockery, pushing the mind of the reader to seek subjective meaning in his words. Ferlinghetti’s work in comparison to another famed poet of the time like Allen Ginsberg carries much of the same anti-establishment rebel poetry. However, Ferlinghetti sought the visually aesthetic poetic style, seeking parallels in his poetry to his art, making the poem’s structure visually appealing so as to indicate the type of flow and rhythm of the poem. “The poems are ‘open’ like exhibited paintings, conveying the message both visually and orally” (Poetry for the People, 138). He was a surrealist and ideals of surrealism permeate his poems. Ferlinghetti also was concerned with being a public poet trying to keep his poetry involved in the San Francisco community. A poem for example which is really involved in the community is titled #6 from his “A Coney Island of the Mind” collection.
They were putting up the statue
of Saint Francis
In front of the Church
of Saint Francis
In the city of San Francisco
in a little side street
just off the Avenue
where no birds sang
(Ferlinghett, 17)
This poem describes a simple moment in which the church of Saint Francis (which is just up the street from Ferlinghetti’s City Lights Bookstore) is receiving the statue of Saint Francis. However, this beautifully small and simple moment of the community becomes twisted in the absence of nature, the overbearing presence of the press and the neglect of the woman who no one seems to see, the woman who must be protesting or crazy, yet she is disregarded. The commentary surrounding the poem is one which appreciates the craziness and absurdity of the misplaced woman and questions that grandeur presence of the church and religion in life. In such ways, Ferlinghetti keeps his readers on his toes constantly seeking meaning in his poetry.
Another example from his “A Coney Island of the Mind” that extends beyond the San Francisco community is #3. In this poem Ferlinghetti “takes upon himself the task of charting the ‘surrealist landscape’ in America” (Poetry for the People, 148-149).
and its America
with its ghost and empty Ellis Islands
and its surrealist landscape of
mindless prairies
supermarket suburbs
steamheated cemeteries
cinerama holy days
and protesting cathedrals
a kissproof world of plastic toiletseats tampax and taxis
drugged store cowboys and las vegas virgins
disowned indians and cinemad matrons
unroman senators and conscientious non-objectors
and all the other fatal shorn-up fragments
of the immigrant's dream come too true
and mislaid
among the sunbathers
(Ferlinghetti, 13).
This poem is filled with surrealist juxtapositions in which his humor and play on words finds its way onto the page. In spite of that, he still seeks to inject a social meaning to his surrealist writings. Ferlinghetti converges beliefs, practices, people, places and writes in a way that creates meaning and purpose constantly evoking readers to reflect upon their own existence.
Even today at ninety-five years old he is keeping poetry alive and vibrant, one of the last standing rebel poets of the 1950’s still preaching awakening the unconscious mind and being an active part of existing as human beings. Contemporary poetry has grown in leaps and bounds thanks to poets like Lawrence Ferlinghetti who will leave behind a trailblazer legacy for future generations to cling to jazz, radicalism, and the poetic voice.
Not only did he move the nation with his profound thought provoking literature, but also his famous bookstore City Lights sparked the ignition of the Beat Movement, an American social and literary movement of the 1950’s. Alongside major figures of the Beat Movement, such as Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, this movement “advocated a kind of free, unstructured composition in which the writer put down his thoughts and feelings without plan or revision—to convey the immediacy of experience—an approach that led to the production of much undisciplined and incoherent verbiage on the part of their imitators” (Encyclopedia Brittanica). His poetry like most of his art and career is a comment on the political situation and the human situation of America and the greater scope of the world throughout the past half century. Ferlinghetti’s poetry was part of the post-World War II movement and was part of the 50’s “perennial avant-garde imperative to reinvigorate literary culture by destroying the hackneyed and moribund” (Watson). As David Emblidge states, Ferlinghetti’s “experience in the military in WWII had made him a radical. Ferlinghetti commanded a landing boat on D-Day in Europe and then was sent to Japan. He was among the first to see the devastation wrought by the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki; his reaction, arising from his outrage, inspired a political shift toward anarchism and a hatred for the entire military-industrial complex” (31).
This onset of radical ideals and beliefs grouped Ferlinghetti alongside Kenneth Rexroth, Philip Lamantia, Gary Snyder, Michael McClure, and Bob Kaufman all whom were like-minded writers living in San Francisco. Ferlinghetti became known as a rebel poet who was a part of The San Francisco Renaissance in the 1950’s. Most of the rebel poets of the 1950’s were concerned with questioning the normality and conformity of the time. Their style was one that was studded with “the bardic spoken voice, links to jazz and spontaneous composition, open verse forms and rhythms, derangement of the senses as a stimulus to creativity, confessional candor, and content that embraced political issues, Buddhism, and the natural environment” (Watson). It was this movement that pushed the boundaries of poetry and the socially accepted norms of the time.
Ferlinghetti forever changed the way society views poetry as he sought to make poetry an engaging oral art. He is author to more than thirty books of poetry, but his poetry collection A Coney Island of the Mind is one of his most popular and most translated work of poetry. It is a book composed of three sections, “A Coney Island of the Mind”, “Oral Messages”, and “Poems from Pictures of the Gone World” which was his first work of poetry. “A Coney Island of the Mind” is 29 poems long and is followed by “Oral Messages” which are a collection of 7 poems meant to be read aloud to the accompaniment of jazz. In “A Coney Island of the Mind” Ferlinghetti writes poems as a conservative post-war piece designed to evoke an element of singsong jazz; embedded with references to painters and writers alike, mentioning names like Franz Kafka to Picasso. Ferlinghetti wished to embody the anarchic chaos which he felt in this dislocated time and hoped to persuade people to living a life to their own accord. The direction in which he wished his readers to understand, was his intention for the piece to be viewed as art. Not only was he bringing poetry into new fields of social and self-expression, but Ferlinghetti also “enlarged his stance and developed major themes of anarchy, mass corruption, engagement, and a belief in the surreality and wonder of life” (Smith). A Coney Island of the Mind challenges the way readers think and interpret poetry, and often resembles a lyric. Each poem “sparkles, sings, goes flat, and generates anger or love out of that flatness as it follows a basic motive of getting down to reality and making of it what we can” (Smith). His poems still “resonate, as they will continue to resonate, with a joyful anti-establishment fervor that beats a rhythmic portrait of humanity”. Beat poets sought to liberate poetry from academic preciosity and bring it “back to the streets.”
Located at the beginning of the book are the words which read, “The title of this book is taken from Henry Miller’s Into the Night Life. It is used out of context but it expresses the way I felt about these poems when I wrote them—as if they were, taken together, a kind of Coney Island of the mind, a kind of circus of the soul” (Ferlinghetti, 8). In this collection we see Ferlinghetti’s witty, anti-establishment, radical voice come through in every line.
The first section of the book is filled with poems that balance ordinary life to religious commentary to political commentary to the historical. Ferlinghetti’s voice in these poems is young and filled with satirical wit and mockery, pushing the mind of the reader to seek subjective meaning in his words. Ferlinghetti’s work in comparison to another famed poet of the time like Allen Ginsberg carries much of the same anti-establishment rebel poetry. However, Ferlinghetti sought the visually aesthetic poetic style, seeking parallels in his poetry to his art, making the poem’s structure visually appealing so as to indicate the type of flow and rhythm of the poem. “The poems are ‘open’ like exhibited paintings, conveying the message both visually and orally” (Poetry for the People, 138). He was a surrealist and ideals of surrealism permeate his poems. Ferlinghetti also was concerned with being a public poet trying to keep his poetry involved in the San Francisco community. A poem for example which is really involved in the community is titled #6 from his “A Coney Island of the Mind” collection.
They were putting up the statue
of Saint Francis
In front of the Church
of Saint Francis
In the city of San Francisco
in a little side street
just off the Avenue
where no birds sang
(Ferlinghett, 17)
This poem describes a simple moment in which the church of Saint Francis (which is just up the street from Ferlinghetti’s City Lights Bookstore) is receiving the statue of Saint Francis. However, this beautifully small and simple moment of the community becomes twisted in the absence of nature, the overbearing presence of the press and the neglect of the woman who no one seems to see, the woman who must be protesting or crazy, yet she is disregarded. The commentary surrounding the poem is one which appreciates the craziness and absurdity of the misplaced woman and questions that grandeur presence of the church and religion in life. In such ways, Ferlinghetti keeps his readers on his toes constantly seeking meaning in his poetry.
Another example from his “A Coney Island of the Mind” that extends beyond the San Francisco community is #3. In this poem Ferlinghetti “takes upon himself the task of charting the ‘surrealist landscape’ in America” (Poetry for the People, 148-149).
and its America
with its ghost and empty Ellis Islands
and its surrealist landscape of
mindless prairies
supermarket suburbs
steamheated cemeteries
cinerama holy days
and protesting cathedrals
a kissproof world of plastic toiletseats tampax and taxis
drugged store cowboys and las vegas virgins
disowned indians and cinemad matrons
unroman senators and conscientious non-objectors
and all the other fatal shorn-up fragments
of the immigrant's dream come too true
and mislaid
among the sunbathers
(Ferlinghetti, 13).
This poem is filled with surrealist juxtapositions in which his humor and play on words finds its way onto the page. In spite of that, he still seeks to inject a social meaning to his surrealist writings. Ferlinghetti converges beliefs, practices, people, places and writes in a way that creates meaning and purpose constantly evoking readers to reflect upon their own existence.
Even today at ninety-five years old he is keeping poetry alive and vibrant, one of the last standing rebel poets of the 1950’s still preaching awakening the unconscious mind and being an active part of existing as human beings. Contemporary poetry has grown in leaps and bounds thanks to poets like Lawrence Ferlinghetti who will leave behind a trailblazer legacy for future generations to cling to jazz, radicalism, and the poetic voice.