5 Poems by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Lawrence Ferlinghetti (Born 1919)

"You are Whitman, you are Poe, you are Mark Twain, you are Emily Dickinson and Edna St. Vincent Millay, you are Neruda and Mayakovsky and Pasolini, you are an American or a non-American, you can conquer the conquerors with words...." Lawrence Ferlinghetti from "Poetry as Insurgent Art"

Not long after Lawrence Ferlinghetti was born on March 24, 1919 in New York, his mother was put in an asylum. His father had died six months before he was born. Ferlinghetti was raised by his aunt Emily in Strasbourg France until he was five. He was placed in an orphanage upon his return to the US until his aunt found work as a governess for the prominent Bislands. In 1926 the Bislands assumed his care after his aunt disappeared suddenly (1PF) The Bislands paid for his education at private prep schools and he earned a BA from the University of North Carolina in 1941. He joined the Navy after graduation.

While in the Navy he became committed to pacifism when he visited the ruins of Nagasaki just six days after the bomb was dropped.(2WP) When he returned to the US he attended Columbia on the GI Bill where he studied under Lionel Trilling and earned a Masters in 1948. He earned a doctorate at the Sorbonne in 1951 writing theses on the nature of the Gothic and on the city as symbol in modern poetry.

Ferlinghetti moved to San Francisco in 1953. He opened City Lights Bookstore with Peter Martin, then the following year launched City Lights publishing with a collection of his poetry, Pictures of a Gone World, as the inaugural offering. He would publish Kenneth Rexroth, Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Robert Duncan, Denise Levertov and William Carlos Williams among others.

Ferlinghetti attended the Six Gallery reading in 1955 that brought notice to the Beat poets, After listening to Ginsberg read Howl, he contacted Ginsberg the next day and offered to publish Howl writing "I greet you at the beginning of a great literary career." (3WP) Howl was seized by San Francisco police in 1956 and Ferlinghetti was arrested on obscenity charges for selling Howl. He was defended by the ACLU and acquitted in October 1957 in a landmark First Amendment case. The trail brought publicity to the San Francisco Renaissance and the Beats.

Ferlinghetti lives in San Francisco. In 2005 he published Poetry as Insurgent Art.


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Text of poems:
Constantly Risking Absurdity
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=184167

Dog
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=238100

Away Above a Harborful...
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=171596

London Crossfigured
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=171597

Monet's Lilies Shuddering
(Not available on line) From Postmodern American Poetry, W. W. Norton & Co., New York, 1994

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Webliography & Notes:
Poetry Foundation: Lawrence Ferlinghetti (Note 1)
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=2162

Wikipedia: Lawrence Ferlinghetti (Notes 2 and 3)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Ferlinghetti

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[Idlinfarm]

That's lovely to hear your reading of these wonderful poems.

[PoemsBeingRead]

@Idlinfarm As always, I am glad you find these readings pleasing. Thanks, Ida

[HerAeolianHarp]

He's still going strong out here. :)

[PoemsBeingRead]

@HerAeolianHarp Yes, Good. Thanks for listening Erika.

[haleymast64]

i'm reciting Dog for state Poetry Out Loud, i beat out everyone else in my highschool and get to recite this, along with two others, for a chance to go to nationals. :]