rip lawrence ferlinghetti

I confess: I have been a fan of the IDEA of Lawrence Ferlinghetti and the Beat poets far more than of their actual work.  But on the occasion of the end of his very long and active life--the things he's seen!--combined with my participation in the February Poem Project hosted by Laura Shovan, I did some reading.

For the project, the theme of which is BODIES, I posted this for today:

 

Legendary Beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti left us this week at the age of 101. He came to prefer the term “wide-open” rather than “Beat” poetry, because of the way it ranged and raged. One critic characterized Ferlinghetti’s work as “a revolutionary art of dissent and contemporary application which jointly drew a lyric poetry into new realms of social—and self-expression. It 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.” 

 I invite you to enjoy Ferlinghetti’s “Underwear”, below and continued at the Poetry Foundation https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42871/underwear, and then to write about our "foundation garments," channeling Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s revolutionary art of dissent and contemporary application. [Underwear ads included as extra fodder.]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 I have not yet written my own foundation garment poem because during my explorations I found a fine and important poem called "I Am Waiting."  It is full, as the critic says, of Ferlinghetti's "sad and comic music of the streets." And then I saw that this poem was published IN 1958, in A CONEY ISLAND OF THE MIND, and somehow it sounds so current and live, and I am kind of stunned.

This is the fifth of six stanzas. The other five are worth your time!

I Am Waiting [excerpt] | Lawrence Ferlinghetti

I am waiting for the day

that maketh all things clear

and I am awaiting retribution

for what America did   

to Tom Sawyer   

and I am waiting

for Alice in Wonderland

to retransmit to me

her total dream of innocence

and I am waiting

for Childe Roland to come

to the final darkest tower

and I am waiting   

for Aphrodite

to grow live arms

at a final disarmament conference

in a new rebirth of wonder

Ferlinghetti preferred to call his poetry "wide-open" and now we see why.  Why can't Tom Sawyer and Alice in Wonderland and Childe Roland and Aphrodite meet on the same turf?  Oh, they can.  My, I feel educated today.  Thanks, Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

 Our host today is Karen at The Blog with the Shockingly Clever Title where she also is marveling, with Billy Collins, at the age of things. May we hang on to history, everything from Aphrodite to Cheerios to the Governor of Louisiana, and publish our howls. Friendly note:  I will probably not comment on PF posts this week so that I can do due diligence by the Feb Project responses.