Book Description

"This comprehensive selection from the influential City Lights Pocket Poets Series is a landmark retrospective, celebrating forty years of publishing and cultural history.

From the introduction by Lawrence Ferlinghetti:
"Even though some say that an avant-garde in literature no longer exists, the smaller independent publisher is itself still a true avant-garde, its place still out there, scouting the unknown . . . From the beginning, the aim was to publish across the board, avoiding the provincial and the academic . . . I had in mind rather an international, dissident, insurgent ferment . . ."

Includes poetry by:
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Kenneth Rexroth, Kenneth Patchen, Allen Ginsberg, Marie Ponsot, Denise Levertov, Gregory Corso, Jacques Prevert, Robert Duncan, Jerome Rothenberg, Nicanor Parra, Robert Nichols, Anselm Hollo, Malcolm Lowry, Frank O'Hara, Philip Lamantia, Bob Kaufman, Janine Pommy-Vega, Charles Upton, Pablo Picasso, Robert Bly, Diane di Prima, Jack Kerouac, Andrei Voznesensky, Pete Winslow, Harold Norse, Anne Waldman, Jack Hirschman, Stefan Brect, Peter Orlovsky, Antler, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Ernesto Cardenal, Antonio Porta, Adam Cornford, La Loca, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Daisy Zamora, Rosario Murillo, and Alberto Blanco.

Customer Reviews (4)

Overrated?
I think this book is quite a bit overrated. People speak about this book gushing with sappiness.I guess I should make it clear at this point that I'm not really a big fan of this style of poetry. I think beatnik prose can be pretty good and pretty poetic,but I tend to be a little leary about beatnik literature that is explicitly poetry. Make no mistake about it, there is some good material in here, including some of Mr. Ferlinghetti's stuff and some of Kerouac's and Ginsberg's typical stuff. However, overall, I wouldn't say I'm too impressed.

Nice overview of City Lights poets, but selection problems
This is a pleasingly slick and blocky hardbacked volume offering a nice sampling of every single one of City Lights' pocket poet editions.But I think the selection could be better.

First, and perhaps predictably, the Beats, and above all Ginsberg, get too much space.Not only does Ginsberg have multiple books in the series, he often gets many poems from each book, while other poets only get one.It's very hard to get a real sense for poets who are new to you--and thus to decide if you want to explore them further--from a single poem.Some of the imbalances are mind-boggling.Corso gets one sole poem, while Kerouac (not a BAD poet, but certainly not a great one) gets eight?!

Second, Ferlinghetti seems undecided on the nature of the volume--is it supposed to represent the best poems in the series, or is it a nostalgic history trip?This is most evident in the selections from Ginsberg--which often appear to have been picked simply because they offer explicit or implicit elegies for each of Ginsberg's famous Beat pals.Many of the Ginsberg selections are pretty disposable--yet his best poems, "America" and "Supermarket in California," are left out, and only part II and the footnote of "Howl" are included.

That said, it's nice to get an easy introduction to City Light's offerings beyond the Beats, that's really the book's best feature.There are many wonderful poems by Kenneth Patchen, a perfect pick of O'Hara, as well as Prevert, Nicanor Parra, Norse, even Picasso, Brecht, and Mayakovsky.It makes me wish they had just trimmed the beats out entirely--or given them their own separate City Lights anthology--so we could get a better taste of the others.

Beat book
A wonderful and portable collection of poems about being on the go and experiencing life to its fullest.

Captures the true beat essence in delightful and sundry ways.

A rare joy in the world of poetry.

*a lucid look into achingly lovely and fierce poetry*
This book is incredible for both the aesthetic pleasure it offeres to its reader, and the inspirational possibilities it holds. Reading such poetry sparks the seeds of creativity in readers and makes them quite possiblywish to overtake the world with beauty and independent thought (o:. Thepoetry in this book both pleases the senses and works to defamiliarize theworld, allowing us to see it new, through the eyes of the poet. Buy thisbook! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

The Buddha in the Poet
The new poems that begin this collection are wonderful; the voice is strong and sure with rich, fresh images and allusions that explode in all kinds of directions. the poems give me a chance to say, "Oh, I get that." or most of it.
I haven't gotten to the selected poems from all of his books, but I know it will be fun to read poems I haven't read in years.
This volume should be a must read for young rebels and writers; should be right up there on the shelf with On The Road and Howl

Total Bliss...
This collection of poems from Ferlinghetti opens the mind due to it's variation of poems from over the years.His style has remained the same yet we see a different side of Ferlinghetti with each era of poems.Thiswas very enjoyable and I recommend it highly.

astonishing
Some of these poems are really really good!Ferlinghetti has great imagination, humor, moments of enlightenment or shall i just say that his poems are really fresh and astonishingly real and immediate?From poems about underwear to poems about Mattisse art exhibits, this collection is a must have for poetry lovers!

I'd also recommend Gregory Corso's poetry collections for those of you who are interested.

This compilation is fantastic!
I bought this book after seeing Ferlinghetti speak at my school in New Hampshire.He was fantastic, and his book is even more so. Buy it! ... Read more

Book Description
After a lifetime, this (r)evolutionary little book is still a work-in-progress, the poet's ars poetica, to which at 88 he is constantly adding.

From the groundbreaking (and betselling) A Coney Island of the Mind in 1958 to the "personal epic" of Americus, Book I in 2003, Lawrence Ferlinghetti has, in more than thirty books, been the poetic conscience of America. Now in Poetry As Insurgent Art, he offers, in prose, his primer of what poetry is, could be, should be. The result is by turns tender and furious, personal and political. If you are a reader of poetry, find out what is missing from the usual fare you are served; if you are a poet, read at your own risk—you will never again look at your role in the same way. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Poetic Wisdom
This great little book - small enough to carry in one's back pocket, like a New Testament or the Little Red Book of Chairman Mao - is my new Manifesto. "Poetry deconstructs power. Absolute poetry deconstructs absolutely." Happy deconstructing.

Review - Poetry As Insurgent Art
Ferlinghetti never ceases to amaze. The volume may be slim, but it is rich with Beat philosophy, true to the Cause. This is a must for fans of the Beat poets.

Beautiful
This is the best work of art that I've seen in a long time. Wonderful.

Lawrence of America
More bon mots from the old bard of San Francisco. To this day Ferlinghetti gets confused for a Beat poet. He is in fact a Bohemian poet and artist who only published the Beats. In this book his words are few but to the point. You want to keep this in your back pocket at all times. Who knows when you're gonna need some emergency wisdom!? He is one of the best poets alive and the title of Lawrence of America is well-earned for a man who single-handedly changed the literary landscape of this country. Thank you Lawrence! May the lights of all the cities of the world shine upon you. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (25)

great
Great poems by one of the best of the Beats. I love the way he pulls stuff straight from other poems and maybe even songs. I also couldn't help but notice several lines that other authors and musicians had stolen from him in turn. A beautiful piece of a great big poetic puzzle.

Thank You, Mr. Ferlinghetti
I first read Lawrence Ferlinghetti's poem, "Constantly Risking Absurdity" when I was 26 years young. I am now 41 and I still read that poem to remind me that even though my body may be taking on the appearances of getting older, my mind, my spirit, and my soul are just as young as ever.

I believe we grow old not because of time, but what we do or don't do with our time. We let our beliefs become rigid, we let our attitudes harden, we forget what it was like to be flexible and youthful and optimistic about life.

This book opens the mind. It expands the heart. It flows through the soul like honey and lets the "imprisoned splendor" escape through the cracks of the entire psyche. I would suggest reading this book by candlelight with maybe some Lee Morgan or John Coltrane in the background.

It's a book of prayers written by a Beat Priest and every day I thank God that I came across that poem I mentioned earlier in this review it changed my life in a million ways known as well as unknown.

If you are looking for something to bring you to a place of youthful vigor, give this book a try. Remember it's never to late to have a great life.

Peace & Blessings

A distant man with a personal message
Ferlinghetti is strange in that he considers himself a man of the people, yet works in a field in which the common man wouldn't normally participate.He writes so that academics won't like him, and fans of bukowski or ginsberg won't necessarily like him.The only poet REMOTELY like him could possibly be Bob Hicok.

Ferlinghetti developed his own style of poetry that's (to paraphrase) not constrained by the limits of the poetic line.It's all over the place, in form and in content.This is his seminal work, and the modern version even contains the best from his previous: Pictures of the Gone World.

He has a sensibility for the turn of a phrase, as we see with "The poet's eye obscenely seeing" and "cast up / the heart flops over / gasping 'Love'.He is in tune with the alienation of the modern age, and although he's far from a "people person", his quiet insights have proven inspiring and invaluable.

His next-best work is probably "starting from san francisco", which contains my favorite poem, "overpopulation" (an oft-overlooked, but great piece of poetry to read aloud).This one, however, is a must-read if you're into a populist aesthetic for poetry.If you like poetry that you can read on fifteen different levels, and isn't really saying anything, this is NOT the book for you.

A Coney Island of the Mind
I first read this book of poems by Lawrence Ferlinghetti while in college in the early 1960's, and Ferlinghetti immediately became my favorite beat poet. "Johnny Nolan has a patch on his ass. Kids chase him..." and "Christ climbed down from his bare tree this year..." have remained in my memory all these years. I am so pleased to own this small book again and will take care to keep it safe this time.

This book changed my life
I'm very serious about the title of my review: "This book changed my life."It did.My father gave me a copy when I was sixteen (32 now) and from that point I've been an *avid* Ferlinghetti fan.His poems delicately point out the subtle joys, heartaches, and beauty which can be easily overlooked every day.

I cannot recommend this book any more highly.Buy this right now.Buy a few copies and give them to friends and family.I certainly have. ... Read more

Book Description
"A Far Rockaway of the Heart" is Ferlinghetti's sequel to "A Coney Island of the Mind," written forty years afterwards in what the author has called "a poetry seizure" that lasted more than a year. A sequence of one hundred and one poems with recurrent themes, it includes various sections on love, art, music, history, and literature, as well as confrontations with major figures in the avant-garde before the arrival of the Beat generation. This paperbound edition now includes eighteen new poems from Ferlinghetti's "Pictures of the Gone World" which he publishes under his City Lights imprint. A self-styled "stand-up tragedian," Ferlinghetti has been called "the foremost chronicler of our times." If "A Coney Island of the Mind" was a generations vibrant eye-opener, "A Far Rockaway of the Heart" is a wake-up call for a new age. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Great Bohemian Poetry
This is a great book for exploring the Bohemian poetry movement in the U.S. (namely, San Francisco).Contains the poem, "Autobiography," in which Ferlinghetti misidentifies Mount Rushmore as existing in North Dakota--but as I met him recently at a reading at the U of Minnesota, he was cool about it--knew exactly what I was talking about. . .so maybe he has learned a little since the time he wrote it!

GREAT!
A Far Rockaway of the Heart is Ferlinghetti's most recent anthology of poetry, and it's one of his best. With more than one hundred poems, it's also packed full of passion. I think that after many years of searching,Ferlinghetti finally found his true voice. These poems are sometimes funny,sometimes painful, but always beautifully created and full of life. ... Read more

Book Description
Lawrence Ferlinghetti lights out for the territories with Book I of his own born-in-the-U.S.A. epic, Americus.

Describing Americus as "part documentary, part public pillow-talk, part personal epic—a descant, a canto unsung, a banal history, a true fiction, lyric and political," Ferlinghetti combines "universal texts, snatches of song, words or phrases, murmuring of love or hate, from Lotte Lenya to the latest soul singer, sayings and shibboleths from Yogi Berra to the National Anthem, the Gettysburg Address or the Ginsberg Address, that haunt our nocturnal imagination." This book is a wake-up call that breaks new ground in the grand tradition of Whitman, W.C. Williams, Charles Olson, and Ezra Pound, as Ferlinghetti cruises our literary and political landscapes, past and present, to create an autobiography of American consciousness. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A great poetic collage
The reviewers didn't get this book. Ferlinghetti speaks to the heart of American experience here in the spirit of John Dos Passos "USA" but without Dos Passos political hysteria. Americus is a great overview of American poetics while at the same time being this incredible distillation of Ferlighetti's own vision of American and the world. To read this book is to revisit some of Ferlinghetti's best writing as he looks back on the world so far. It is an incredible achievment in a time where it is so unfashionable to be political or to see the world beyond the elitest confines of academic poetry. The Publisher's Weekly review misses the mark, he does not try to rival Whitman or Pound, but he takes that voice into our new millenium. I see him as a continuation of the work that so many modern poets are afraid to take up. I am looking forward to book II. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Kick written warmth exuding joy
Man oh Man oh Man... this book is WORTH the read and probably worth whatever Amazon's asking for it. It's a thrown down literary jump kick and thinking about Ferlingetti as the "Up Beat" is a good way todescribe the writing style. Ginsberg liked to scratch along the belly ofthe humanistic machine but sweet Lawrence writes poetry (the best of whichi think this book encapsulates) that swings around the golden side of ourexistance. i borrowed this book for awhile and would wake up and read a bitof it and everything became a little clearer, a little sweeter and littlebit more tantalizingly beautiful. this book has the potential to make youhungrier for things and is an easy read in terms of poetry. Oh man oh manoh man...

populist vistas
Until the publication of A Far Rockaway of the Heart, this collection (consisting of 2 books published in the late seventies) was by far my favourite collection by this sometimes publisher, sometimes poet.Itincludes a number of his greatest poems, such as "populistmanifesto," "the old italians dying" & "director ofalienation".Although Ferlinghetti may not be one of America'sgreatest postwar poets, there is a wonderful accessablity to his verse. Indeed a populist poet & worthy of that station & a poet whosometimes does not get the credit his work deserves (in the wake of recentanthologies such as Rothenberg and Jorris' Poems for the Millenium andMesserli's From the Other Side of the Century). ... Read more

Book Description

In the years immediately following World War II, Jacques Prevert spoke directly to and for the French who had come of age during the German Occupation. First published in 1946 by Les Editions de Minuit, a press with its origins in the Underground, Paroles met with enormous success, and there were several hundred thousand copies in print by the time these first translations in English were published by City Lights in 1958.

Today Prevert speaks out in a voice still attuned to our times, for the human condition (which is always his focus) has not changed. In fact, man's inhumanity to man would seem to have intensified, making these poems ever more touching, ever more prescient.

Customer Reviews (3)

Born in war, but graced by beauty
"Paroles: Selected Poems," by Jacques Prevert, is Number 9 in the Pocket Poets Series from City Lights Books.This volume is translated by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who also contributes a "Translator's Note."This is a bilingual edition, with the French and English versions of the poems on facing pages.The back cover notes that Prevert's "Paroles" was first published in 1946; Ferlinghetti states that many of these poems "grew out of World War II and the Occupation in France."

I noticed some recurring themes and motifs in this volume.Prevert is very concerned with human pain and suffering; also, there are many references and allusions to war.There is a real iconoclastic streak running through this book.Although many of the poems have a surreal, whimsical quality, much of this poetry is also firmly anchored in tangible realities: an orange, a raincoat, a cigarette, "the faint sound / of a hardboiled egg cracked on a tin counter."Some of the poems have an almost haiku-like quality, saying much with an economy of words.

There were a number of poems that I found particularly striking."Song" had a joyful, transcendent quality."Inventory" had an experimental flavor that reminded me somewhat of Gertrude Stein's work."I've Seen Some of Them" is like a Whitmanesque litany, but with a darker, cryptic, and tragic tone."Picasso's Magic Lantern" uses words in odd and startling combinations; this poem eptomizes the role of the poet as a sort of prophet who evokes an altered state of consciousness through his creative process.Prevert's voice in "Paroles," although sometimes dark, is overall compassionate and even tender.He seems to be intent on capturing the contradictions, absurdities, beauty, and despair of the early 20th century in his poetry.

a great collection
I had become very interested in French poetry but was not sure who to read that was more modern. I first heard of Prevert in my French text book. They had included some biographical information on Prevert and one of his poems for students to read due to its simplicity of language. This was the tip I was looking for, and I was very curious to read more of this poet--and I am glad I did!
I would compare Prevert to W.C. Williams in the sense that they both find the profound in the mundane. This is an ability that I greatly admire in a poet, and Prevert has the gift of being able to illuminate the beauty that passes us unnoticed at all times. If you are a long time lover of great poetry or are simply looking to expand your horizons you will not be disappointed with this book. Prevert and his poetry span the entire range of humanity--the young love him as well as the old, the academic as well as the average reader. He is accessable to all, and loved by all.

a wonderful little collection
This is a fantastic collection of poems.Ferlinghetti did a fabulous job translating these poems into English.Jacques Prevert is a greatly neglected French poet who spoke volumes with his verse.This bilingualedition is a great gift for any lover of poetry.Poems like Pater Nosterand Flowers and Wreaths are beautiful verses.Prevert is simple inlanguage but amazingly poignant at his best.He knew the value ofdirectness.These poems are like little jewels of human wisdom.HumanEffort, I Am As I Am, Song of The Jailer, etc.There are many highlightsin this book.This often maligned, overlooked poet deserves to be rereadtoday.Many who give this book a couple honest reads will probably beimpressed by the sheer poetic wonder of this volume.I would state thatbecause it is bilingual, students of the French language might also findvalue in finding the translations en face with the original.This is agreat package all around. ... Read more

Book Description
This collection of recent poems is graced with a short introduction by the poet in which he says, "All I ever wanted to do was to paint light on the walls of life." For more than fifty years Ferlinghetti has been doing just that—illuminating both the everyday and the unusual, all the while keeping true to his original dictum of speaking in a way accessible to everyone. He has been, and remains, "One of our ageless radicals and true bards" (Booklist) and his voice is well-known in many places around the world. He was one of the two American poets (the other being John Ashbery) chosen to participate in the 2001 Celebration of UNESCO's World Poetry Day in Delphi, Greece, where he along with his international confreres each poetically addressed the Oracle. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Demonstrates and documents a true literary master
Lawrence Ferlinghetti is one of the best and widely read of America's 20th century poets, who has been awarded numerous citations, awards, and recognitions for his work. How To Paint Sunlight: New Poems showcases for his legions of fans a new compendium of his work that demonstrates and documents a true literary master. Moored: A boat moored/In the deep shade/under a weeping willow/in the bend of a river//As the light fades/so does the boat/with its willow/with its river//Only memory remains/of the lovers/in the bottom of the boat/moored to each other//They too/Gone on.

He's Still Got It!
This book is a real delight to anyone who enjoys poetry. Ferlinghetti still has it and has it in spades. His poems do something that most poets have forgotten how to do: COMMUNICATE! He is the poet for Everyman and the Everyman of poets. In an age of poetry slams and unintelligable linguistic pirouettes from Europe, Ferlighetti stands nearly alone. The poetry still has its political edge, there are lines in the section on Big Sur that will go into the thin volume that should be made on the poetry and prose that really describe the Big Sur experience. And finally, the last section, Into The Interior, where the poet turns the unflinching light of honesty on the death of Allen Ginsburg, and himself, is a simple, quiet apotheosis. Read this book.

Interesting in parts,other times a disappointment
I just picked up this book today,after eagerly awaiting it. It is worth reading, but if you are a fan of his older material ("Her","European Poems & Transitions","Coney Island of the Mind",etc. etc.) it is somewhat of a disappointment. Also,a few of these poems aren't all that 'new' per se. There is one where he wrote, "Ginsberg died 49 nights ago" and well, Ginsberg has been dead for four years now. There are a few memorable,beautifully lyrical lines..."Your heart in a flower pales the dawn" from, 'First, the News'. Other poems are funny in parts..."You don't get in free, & there's no chicken soup, and this ain't no Frank O'Hara lunch poem". Sadly though, for the most part this book is somewhat unmemorable. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

A dream walking
A beautiful surrealist novel, this is the sort of thing that's so easy to do badly, and so difficult to do well. It doesn't have a plot so much as an underlying archetypal theme, that of Man pursuing the ideal & unattainable Feminine in all of Her ever-changing aspects; but it does have an ongoing narrative drive, one which unfolds in fluid prose, rich in imagery & emotional intensity. Ferlinghetti perfectly recreates the essence of a dream, which has its own logic & its own needs, and makes its own sort of deep sense. The reader has only to surrender to its flow & be carried along, with one image or scene yielding to another in a continuous surge of immediate experience & psychological surprise. Highly recommended!

just can't put my finger on it
When I looked at the cover of this book, I couldn't even begin to fathom what was inside of it. The story itself is so surreal that it wouldn't even be considered a story by some. The plot (if there is one) is so vauge that I couldn't identify it. And that's what makes ot good! I must read more Ferlenghetti. I have tried my hand at writing such a book, but with no sucess. The text is fresh, not at all dull. Don't try reading this while you're in your right mind, though, and not during the day, either. The scenes that the author creates are sort of harrowing, they linger in your mind, and they stick. Read it in small sections. It took me weeks, but it was worth it.
It is difficult to get used to Ferlenghetti's writing style, but once you're into it, it doesn't let go. It's all sort of like a dream, some parts a nightmare. The ending was hard to understand from my perspective, but it seems to sum everything up. I highly reccomend this book.

random pourings
totally agree with the first reviewer, many more people should be reading this book, expressing as it does a complete subjection to the writer's art and babbling about blowing up to fill a room. like breton perhaps ferlinghetti forgets about popular literary constraints and merely expresses himself in perfect sequences. remember philip quarles in Huxley's point counter point, he says that a good story could come out of one person's seemingly unmemorable journey from the bus stop next to his house and his front room. Ferlinghetti, like so many kids, spends these pages searching for the essence of the female,essentially. yes, read this book whendrunk or tired, or both. or neither.

strange stuff but it all makes sense (maybe)
it worries me that no one has written a review for this book yet. they say i'll be the first. i'm ordering this book through amazon, but i read it my first time many moons ago, back when i was reading "watt" bybeckett, and a lot of other wierd stuff. maybe it was just a point in mylife, but this book spoke to me. wacked out on whatever those crazy beatsgot whacked out on, consumed by passion and equally consumed by confusion,ranting and pouring it all out on the page, this book is what comes outwhen you have nothing else to lose. read it. don't try and make sense ofit. there is no sense when you are crushed by longing. this is a monumentto that feeling you get when being in love makes you a deranged idiot. ... Read more

Book Description

Customer Reviews (1)

The man behind the bookstore that launched 1000 poets!
What can you say to a young person who wants to write? How about "Give a Reading!" If City Lights did not exist, there would be one very small list of titles coming out of San Francisco. I don't say thateveryone that has gone to North Beach has eventually become a publishedauthor...but...when you even have a movie; like that of the KeeferSutherland & "Captain America" (Easy Rider )which ends ("starts-off") at The CITY LIGHTS BOOKSTORE in San Francisco, andDennis Hopper is the "Beat" who finally makes it; it is atribute, and should inspire the younger artists to give it a try-andtellall the "wiser" Bohemians to give it "another try!"Read the stuff from the guy that supportedall the other strugglingvoices, and breath easy. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The Mexican Night is a peculiar read.
The Mexican Night is a peculiar read. It's a travel journal of all his thoughts and escapades throughout Mexico that bounces haphazardly from topic to topic. The Mexican Night still has Feringhetti's poetic brillance but unfortunately lacks depth in comparison to his other writings. Strangely, the book reflects Kerouac's style with the prose form poetics, but doesn't have the unique poetic precision that is characteristic of Ferlinghetti. Nevertheless, the Mexican Night is a travel journal of a poet. So,the book is not necessarily a poetry book, but a thought journal of a unique poet that will always be a literary great. But the Mexican Night deviates from his usual writings that people would be familiar with. The Mexican Night reflects an interesting versitility of writing style from a exceptional poet. I definately recommend the Mexican Night to the Ferlinghetti enthusiast but not necessarily as an introduction to his writings. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

thought provoking, breathtaking, amazing
calling ferlinghetti's work anything less than the above would be blasphemous, but really, what great writing! i love his observations and insights on different places and people. and the way he puts words together, like "concrete crete", in one poem. i read these poems, and sit dumbfounded, in public places no less, breathless, with a goofy grin on my face. these poems are absolute masterpieces. a must for any europhile, traveler, tourist, beatnik-wannabe. heck, a must in general.

thought provoking, breathtaking, amazing
calling ferlinghetti's work anything less than the above would be blasphemous, but really, what great writing! i love his observations and insights on different places and people. and the way he puts words together, like "concrete crete", in one poem. i read these poems, and sit dumbfounded, in public places no less, breathless, with a goofy grin on my face. these poems are absolute masterpieces. a must for any europhile, traveler, tourist, beatnik-wannabe. heck, a must in general. ... Read more

Book Description
Having an aversion to the idea of discussing the "craft" of poetry or the "process" of creating a poem, Lawrence Ferlinghetti usually mumbles something about "It's a trade secret" when pressed on the subject.

What is Poetry? is the closest he has come to formulating an ars poetica. It is an on-going project which he is constantly revising and expanding. The present volume is the latest stage along the road. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Mystical reflections on poetry
Lawrence Ferlinghetti's "What Is Poetry?" consists of s series of statements, rendered in free verse, which reflect on the nature of poetry. According to a note at the beginning of the book, the roots of this text go back to an oral version recorded in the 1950s. The statements often have a mystical flavor; reading the book is like reading a sort of postmodern scripture. Examples of the statements:

"Poetry is news / from the frontiers of consciousness"; "A poem should arise to ecstasy / somewhere between speech and song"; "Words are living fossils / The poet should / piece the wild beast together / and make it sing"; "Poetry is religion / Religion is poetry."

Many of the sayings are quite striking and thought-provoking; the most intriguing of them invite re-reading and reflection. Overall the book makes a fascinating complement to a more conventional prose work about poetry (like Mary Oliver's "A Poetry Handbook").

If there is a flaw to this book, it is that many of Ferlinghetti's statements are, I believe, not just applicable to poetry, but to any form of good writing. Consider, for example, when he writes "The poet is a subversive barbarian / at the city gates / constantly challenging / our status quo." I think that such a statement is also true about many writers of prose or drama; thus such a statement doesn't necessarily offer any special insight into what distinguishes poetry from these other forms. Still, I really like this book and recommend it to readers, writers, and teachers of poetry.

"Poetry is what exists between the lines."
"Be a poet, not a huckster. Don't cater, don't pander, especially not to possible audiences, readers, editors or publishers," is one of the recent challenges that Beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti offered to budding poets from thirty San Francisco high schools. He knows. He's been writing poetry since his own school days in the late 1920s.

_What is Poetry?_is a golden-covered pocketbook of prose-poetry, with sixty-four pages of one to four lines of free verse on each page. The opening Note says that "[a] very early prose version of this text was transcribed from a KPFA (FM) broadcast recorded by Mr. Ferlinghetti in the late 1950s under the title, _The Street's Kiss_ ." After much revising and expansion, including publication in his "Poetry As News" column in the San Francisco Chronicle Book Review, Mr. Ferlinghetti has shared his insights into this mystery of what is poetry and of what poetry shoud be.

Something one might find on the cutting-room floor is this preface that Mr. Ferlinghetti wrote in his column on January 16, 2000: " 'What is Poetry?' There are no doubt as many definitions of poetry as there are poems. Perhaps more, since there are more poetry professors and critics than there are poets. Perhaps there's a need in the new century for some new definitions. Or perhaps the golden oldies will hold up better than any. Risking the derision of postmodern eggheads, I'll put some of my old ones and some of my new ones to the test of the twenty-first century: Poetry is news from the frontiers of consciousness."

One might open this small book to any one of its pages and find "what exists between the lines." For here is a pleasure for the mind and a tasty treat for the senses.

essense of poetry
If you've ever had a hard time understanding or expressing yourself through poetry--this is the book for you. San Francisco's only poet Laureate, through a series of short observations about what poetry is, sums up the essence of the art form. The book's beauty lies in its brevity. No more than ten words on each page that goes to the heart of poetic expression.

It's a great book for any poetry lover. ... Read more