The final word always goes to the poet. Poet is priest. That's why Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the famed San Francisco poet & publisher, should have a loftier rank than "former poet laureate." He's really the archbishop of letters in this part of the world. At 88, he's lost none of the fire, the sense of satire or the deep bewilderment over the human condition, and how America still heeds not the warnings of poets since Whitman. There's a bit of Whitman in Ferlinghetti. He once collected "leaves of grass" from Whitman's grave in New Jersey, and gently arranged thin in the front window at City Lights Books. Richard Brautigan, the tall, temperamental, and intemperate popular writer & poet shuffled by. Ferlinghetti said to him, "Look, Richard, leaves of grass from Whitman's grave." Brautigan squinted and scowled at the display, and muttered, "Good argument for cremation."
Ferlinghetti is far too optimistic to take any of that seriously.
Some of that optimism was not too evident at a rare reading that he gave at City Lights recently, a treat that I was not going to pass up. About 70 people crowded into the store -- some us got there two hours early to get a seat. The doors were locked, the store was closed. Gray, bearded and robust Ferlinghetti appeared at a small table, and began to read from his latest collection, Poetry As Insurgent Art.
"The state of the world calls out for poetry to save it." ..."Question everything and everyone, including Socrates, who questioned everything." ... "Secretly liberate any being you see in a cage."
His new book, a small volume, is a primer on how to make trouble and to resist by way of the manner of poetry. Poets are always supposed to be trouble makers, always taking the road not often taken. They often do not cooperate with the status quo. "Speak up. Act out. Silence is complicity," the poet urges.
Ferlinghetti not only decries the mad acts of the U.S. government, he's stunned by the obtuseness of the media.
"I saw two reviews of my book, one in a Boston newspaper," He explains. "Not once did anyone even mention the word "insurgent," let along investigate what I mean by it. It's amazing."
And depressing. The evening quickly deteriorated into an uninvited question & answer session. Is everything open for audience participation these days? Ferlinghetti looked alarmed. Many in this literate crowd did not know what "insurgency" is nor how it could possibly apply to poets.
Maybe Ferlinghetti is alarmed because his murals were taken down from the Bank of America recently because they depicted nudity and were considered indecent. What year is this again?
"I am still afraid that I might be -- what is that thing they do in meat factories? Rendered?"
This from the man who faced jail over publishing Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" fifty years ago. Yes, fifty years ago.
"I wrote and published a poem called "Tentative Description of a Dinner Given to Promote the Impeachment of President Eisenhower," Ferlinghetti recalled at the reading the other night. "That was considered insurgent then. My God, by today's standards, Eisenhower was a saint."
And San Francisco's archbishop of poetic insurgency would know.
Bruce Bellingham is the author of Bellingham by the Bay. One of Bruce's proudest moments was to be invited by Ferlinghetti to read from that book at City Lights Books. Bruce's e-mail is bruce@northsidesf.com
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