Lawrence Ferlinghetti, literary citadel of San Francisco, dies at 101

Washington Post ^ | 2/23/21 | Emma Brown

[Borges]

Lawrence Ferlinghetti, an acclaimed poet and longtime proprietor of City Lights, the San Francisco bookstore and avant-garde publishing house that catapulted the Beat Generation to fame and helped establish the city as a center of literary and cultural revolution, died Feb. 22 at his home in San Francisco. He was 101.

The cause was interstitial lung disease, said his son, Lorenzo.

Intensely private and fiercely political, Mr. Ferlinghetti became a household name in the 1950s when he stood trial on obscenity charges for publishing Allen Ginsberg’s hallucinatory anti-establishment manifesto “Howl.”

[Ge0ffrey]

He should have been convicted.

[BenLurkin]

He clung to that christmas tree but all lives come to the next phase.

[Skywise]

He probably approved of cancel culture too

[Da Coyote]

When the WaPo lauds a person’s life, one can be pretty sure that the laudee was a dork.

After all - journalists. QED

[nickcarraway]

He founded City Lights Bookstore.

[steve in DC]

Well! He’s dead now. And no one younger than 70 probably even remembers his name.

[proxy_user]

Ferlinghetti was still alive? This is like reading about the death of an Eisenhower cabinet member in 2021.

[MercyFlush]

Anyone who’s been to City Lights knows it stinks of patchouli oil, incense, marijuana, and Marx.

I’ve been there once and that was enough.

[Blurb2350]

Wasn’t Michael “Savage” one of his pals or protégés at one time?

[Rocco DiPippo]

That was Ginsberg.

[Hebrews 11:6]

Way back when I was young, stupid and unsaved, I enjoyed his poetry somewhat. Now I’m old, stupid and saved, and I don’t care.

[RedStateRocker]

I’m 59. I took a poetry class from him. Cool old dude.

[Seruzawa]

He dies with SFO sinking under piles of feces. A fitting end for the counter-culture “revolution”.

[nikos1121]

You read his poetry, and Ginsberg’s today, and it’s pure crap.

I think this is supposedly is most famous work. Here is an exerpt. Tell me this makes you want to read the next several verses.

I Am Waiting

 x 1

I am waiting for my case to come up
and I am waiting
for a rebirth of wonder
and I am waiting
for someone to really discover America
and wail
and I am waiting
for the discovery
of a new symbolic western frontier
and I am waiting
for the American Eagle
to really spread its wings
and straighten up and fly right
and I am waiting
for the Age of Anxiety
to drop dead
and I am waiting
for the war to be fought
which will make the world safe
for anarchy
and I am waiting
for the final withering away
of all governments
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder

[nikos1121]

Verse 2 of I Am Waiting

I am waiting for the Second Coming
and I am waiting
for a religious revival
to sweep through the state of Arizona
and I am waiting
for the Grapes of Wrath to be stored
and I am waiting
for them to prove
that God is really American
and I am waiting
to see God on television
piped’ onto church altars
if only they can find
the right channel
to tune in on
and I am waiting
for the Last Supper to be served again
with a strange new appetizer
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder

[Blurb2350]

I think it was both of them . . . though he was closer in age to Ginsberg. Ferlinghetti was something of an éminence grise even then.

[nikos1121]

It was the kind of poetry during the 50s and 60s that you dared not criticize.

I was a Freshman in HS, and I wrote poetry. To me his stuff was very very intimate and introspective. Like reading a 15 year old girl’s diary.

I read it today, and it’s junk.

Verse 3 of I Am Waiting

I am waiting for my number to be called
and I am waiting
for the Salvation Army to take over
and I am waiting
for the meek to be blessed
and inherit the earth
without taxes and I am waiting
for forests and animals
to reclaim the earth as theirs
and I am waiting
for a way to be devised
to destroy all nationalisms
without killing anybody
and I am waiting
for linnets and planets to fall like rain
and I am waiting for lovers and weepers
to lie down together again
in a new rebirth of wonder

[nikos1121]

Verse 4. Why does one get the feeling that, this guy just rattled off his thoughts during a daily buzz, fueled with bad wine and post LSD.

I mean this is not poetry in the Carl Sandberg, Charles Frost sense. Pure garbage, but I suppose he was head of English at some university.

I am waiting for the Great Divide to ‘be crossed
and I am anxiously waiting
for the secret of eternal life to be discovered
by an obscure general practitioner
and I am waiting
for the storms of life
to be over
and I am waiting
to set sail for happiness
and I am waiting
for a reconstructed Mayflower
to reach America
with its picture story and tv rights
sold in advance to the natives
and I am waiting
for the lost music to sound again
in the Lost Continent
in a new rebirth of wonder

[nikos1121]

Last two verses. Hmmm. No punctuation. I guess that means, he was just “thinking” out loud?

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 the American Boy
to take off Beauty’s clothes
and get on top of her
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

I am waiting
to get some intimations
of immortality
by recollecting my early childhood
and I am waiting
for the green mornings to come again
youth’s dumb green fields come back again
and I am waiting
for some strains of unpremeditated art
to shake my typewriter
and I am waiting to write
the great indelible poem
and I am waiting
for the last long careless rapture
and I am perpetually waiting
for the fleeing lovers on the Grecian Urn
to catch each other up at last
and embrace
and I am waiting
perpetually and forever
a renaissance of wonder