Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Lawrence Ferlinghetti is an American poet and artist (b. 1919) best known as a key force in bringing about the Beat movement in literature, especially in the San Francisco area. Ferlinghetti himself, however, does not use the term “Beat” to describe his work, instead preferring the term “wide-open”; Ferlinghetti says the term could be interpreted as referring to “the wide-ranging content of my poetry, or, in a different mode, to the poetry of the Beats…”

Ferlinghetti was born to Italian immigrants in Bronxville, New York on March 24, 1919 . He spent various parts of his childhood in an orphanage in New York, France, and living in the mansion of the wealthy Bisland family in Bronxville, New York. He eventually graduated from UNC with a BA in Journalism in 1941, and later from Columbia University with a graduate degree in journalism. In 1948, while studying at the Sorbonne in Paris, Ferlinghetti began to paint. Early in his career, he drew inspiration from abstract expressionist works.

In 1953, Ferlinghetti founded City Lights Bookshop (the first all-paperbound bookshop/publisher) in the country. He himself has published dozens of volumes of poems, and his 1968 A Coney Island of the Mind is still the most popular poetry book in the country.

Some recurring themes in Ferlinghetti’s work include the beauty of nature, common human life and the everyday tragedies and comedies, individuals in the face of the mass of society, and issues with the democratic system and fulfillment/failure of the American Dream. I enjoy Ferlinghetti because his poetic voice and artistic style is honest without losing its expressive. qualities. He uses words, rhythm, and line breaks in his poems and color, line, and composition (among others) in his art in ways that never seem contrived or polished, but rather make his work more “wide open” or accessible to the reader/viewer. I always feel as if he is speaking to me alone, whether in the form of a sketch or a poem.

The works I include here come from the book Ferlinghetti, Lawrence. Life Studies, Life Stories: 80 Works On Paper. In the foreword of the book, Ferlinghetti says, “As a painter, I have always been more interested in the life stories of the models than in their physical appearance, and these drawings are all attempts to ‘scratch the surface’ of the human façade.”

 

“Thinking It Over” (1979) Acrylic and Charcoal. 21.5” x 30” 

I connect with Ferlinghetti’s use of color to emphasize the very emotional underbelly of thought.

“The Human Form” 1983. Acrylic and Charcoal. 32” x 21.5”

”If the Sun Could Think” (1985) Acrylic and Charcoal. 25” x 19”

Here Ferlinghetti’s contrasting uses of line separate Sun from Man in a thought-provoking way.

“Through the Surf” (1984) Acrylic. 19” x 25”

 

“Quite Out of It” (1990) Acrylic. 23” x 29.5”

I appreciate how much Ferlinghetti manages to express here despite his minimalist approach and simple lines.

Two of Ferlinghetti’s poems:

Underwear

I didn’t get much sleep last night

thinking about underwear

Have you ever stopped to consider   

underwear in the abstract   

When you really dig into it

some shocking problems are raised   

Underwear is something   

we all have to deal with   

Everyone wears

some kind of underwear

The Pope wears underwear I hope

The Governor of Louisiana   

wears underwear

I saw him on TV

He must have had tight underwear

He squirmed a lot

Underwear can really get you in a bind

You have seen the underwear ads

for men and women

so alike but so different

Women’s underwear holds things up

Men’s underwear holds things down   

Underwear is one thing   

men and women have in common   

Underwear is all we have between us

You have seen the three-color pictures

with crotches encircled

to show the areas of extra strength

and three-way stretch

promising full freedom of action

Don’t be deceived

It’s all based on the two-party system

which doesn’t allow much freedom of choice   

the way things are set up   

America in its Underwear

struggles thru the night

Underwear controls everything in the end   

Take foundation garments for instance   

They are really fascist forms

of underground government

making people believe

something but the truth

telling you what you can or can’t do   

Did you ever try to get around a girdle   

Perhaps Non-Violent Action

is the only answer

Did Gandhi wear a girdle?

Did Lady Macbeth wear a girdle?

Was that why Macbeth murdered sleep?   

And that spot she was always rubbing—

Was it really in her underwear?

Modern anglosaxon ladies

must have huge guilt complexes

always washing and washing and washing   

Out damned spot

Underwear with spots very suspicious   

Underwear with bulges very shocking   

Underwear on clothesline a great flag of freedom   

Someone has escaped his Underwear   

May be naked somewhere

Help!

But don’t worry

Everybody’s still hung up in it

There won’t be no real revolution

And poetry still the underwear of the soul   

And underwear still covering

a multitude of faults

in the geological sense—

strange sedimentary stones, inscrutable cracks!   

If I were you I’d keep aside

an oversize pair of winter underwear   

Do not go naked into that good night   

And in the meantime

keep calm and warm and dry

No use stirring ourselves up prematurely   

‘over Nothing’

Move forward with dignity

hand in vest

Don’t get emotional

And death shall have no dominion   

There’s plenty of time my darling

Are we not still young and easy

Don’t shout

--

The World Is A Beautiful Place (1955)

The world is a beautiful place

to be born into

if you don't mind happiness

not always being

so very much fun

if you don't mind a touch of hell

now and then

just when everything is fine

because even in heaven

they don't sing

all the time

The world is a beautiful place

to be born into

if you don't mind some people dying

all the time

or maybe only starving

some of the time

which isn't half bad

if it isn't you

Oh the world is a beautiful place

to be born into

if you don't much mind

a few dead minds

in the higher places

or a bomb or two

now and then

in your upturned faces

or such other improprieties

as our Name Brand society

is prey to

with its men of distinction

and its men of extinction

and its priests

and other patrolmen

and its various segregations

and congressional investigations

and other constipations

that our fool flesh

is heir to

Yes the world is the best place of all

for a lot of such things as

making the fun scene

and making the love scene

and making the sad scene

and singing low songs and having inspirations

and walking around

looking at everything

and smelling flowers

and goosing statues

and even thinking

and kissing people and

making babies and wearing pants

and waving hats and

dancing

and going swimming in rivers

on picnics

in the middle of the summer

and just generally

'living it up'

Yes

but then right in the middle of it

comes the smiling

mortician