Lawrence Ferlinghetti and The Beats

1. Lawrence FerlinghettiandThe Beats By Jen Meya and Amelia Cooke

2. Objectives • Students will learn characteristics of beat poetry • Students will develop an understand of some of Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s poetry • Students will be able to analyse one of his poems

3. What is beat poetry? Beat poetry contains certain essentials such as: • spontaneity • open emotion • visceral engagement in gritty world experiences • spiritual yearning

4. Facts of Life -Lawrence Ferlinghetti (born March 24, 1919) -poet who is best known as the co-owner of the City Lights Bookstore and publishing house -published early literary works of the Beat Generation, including Jack Kerouac, Kenneth Rexroth and Allen Ginsberg. -best-known collection of poetry is A Coney Island of the Mind -also enjoys painting -Ferlinghetti's poetry countered the literary elite's definition of art and the artist's role in the world. Though imbued with the commonplace, his poetry cannot be simply described as polemic (a controversial argument ) or personal protest, for it stands on his craftsmanship, thematics, and grounding in tradition.

5. Themes • Among his themes are: • the beauty of natural world • the tragicomic life of the common man • the plight of the individual in mass society • and the dream and betrayal of democracy

6. Sometime during eternitysome guys show upand one of themwho shows up real lateis a kind of carpenterfrom some square-type placelike Galileeand he starts wailingand claiming he is hepto who made heavenand earthand that the catwho really laid it on usis his Dad And moreoverhe addsIt's all writ downon some scroll-type parchmentswhich some henchmenleave lying around the Dead Sea somewheresa long time agoand which you won't even findfor a coupla thousand years or soor at least forninteen hundred and fortysevenof themto be exactand even thennobody really believes themor mefor that matter Sometime During Eternity

7. You're hotthey tell himAnd they cool himThey stretch him on the Tree to coolAnd everybody after thatis always making modelsof this Treewith Him hung upand always crooning His nameand calling Him to come downand sit inon their comboas if he is THE king catwho's got to blowor they can't quite make it Only he don't come downfrom His TreeHim just hang thereon His Treelooking real Petered outand real cooland alsoaccording to a roundupof late world newsfrom the usual unreliable sourcesreal dead continued…

8. Analysis • a second hand account of the story of Jesus • language used is very “common man” and very “today” The phrase “petered out” used near the end of the poems seems to have originated in the mining camps of America in the 19th century. • a type of cynical or laissez faire voice

9. Continued • For example the repetitive use of the word “some” in the first part gives the story almost no importance. It almost sounds like a joke you would tell to a group of friends, you would say “So some guys walk into a bar” and in the poem he says “Sometime during eternity some guys show up...” • He has not planned to tell this story. The speaker is not thinking before he is speaking but is being rather spontaneous.

10. … • This poems gives the impression that the speaker is not very religious • He does not believe the story he is being told. The last line “real dead” to me means that he is looking at the world today and based on what he sees, he cannot believe this story.

11. 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 I am waiting..

12. I am waiting for the second coming And I am waiting For a religious revival To sweep thru the state of Arizona And I am waiting For the grapes of wrath to stored And I am waiting For them to prove That God is really American And I am waiting To see God on television Piped into church altars If they can find The right channel To tune it in on And I am waiting for the last supper to be served again and a strange new appetizer and I am perpetually awaiting a rebirth of wonder 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 …

13. 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 I am waiting for the great divide to be crossed and I anxiously waiting For the secret of eternal life to be discovered By an obscure 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 …

14. I am waiting for the day that maketh all things clear and I am waiting for 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 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 rapture and I am perpetually waiting for the fleeting lovers on the Grecian Urn to catch each other at last …

15. to catch each other at last and embrace and I am awaiting perpetually and forever a renaissance of wonder …………………………..

16. Analysis • Ferlinghetti's poetry is powerful, deceptively simple verse with more than one messageSuch as: . How the general public is corrupting our living             . Teaching people about themselves             . Their flaws and their potential              . Telling people to get back to reality             . Tries to figure out what is the true meaning of life • -His poetry uses plain language to expound upon everything from childhood to social and political alteration and the quiet joys of everyday life-According to ferlinghetti, he feels that the secret of life hasn't been discoveredex. " waiting for the secret of life to be discovered " In this poem he states " I am waiting for the storms to be over"- it seems that he means that our world is so corrupt that we are so obsessed with the same old life style that we can't even see beyond of what we're looking for which is really nothing

17. Continued • -Most of his poems uses sarcasm to illustrate the message. It reflects on innocence and hopefulness- I am waiting is about political and social issues that concerned Ferlinghetti- It reflects his criticism in many areas, explaining how he's tired - he's waiting for us to just start all over again           . example of this is how he states at the end of each paragraph "a rebirth of wonder" and then "a renaissance of wonder"

18. The End Wahoooo!