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54 I artist andCityLightsco-founderLawrence Ferlinghettireflects LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI An enduringiconoftheBeatGeneration, 90-year-old poet, IJanuary 2010 Literary Legend on literaryuprisings—past,present andfuture. BY ZACHARY PETIT THE WDINTERVIEW

PHOTO © /CORBIS PHOTO © CHRISTOPHER FELVER/CORBIS T William S.Burroughs and Charles Bukowski. Upon the French and in1953co-founded , the He for prevailed victory writers inalegal that stands to this I considered Iwrote myself when apoet her, and I felt Ihad Lawrence Ferlinghetti? Studies, Life Stories Studies, City Lights imprint and published likes the of , Generation of writers. inWWII.He He adoc earned served mid-1950s exclusivelyfocused on paperbacks). Therebeganthe he morning, perhaps harking back to 90-year-old the writer, release of Ginsberg’s Allen iconic hub of writers Beat the (and first the storethe in nation in 1919,Ferlinghetti is one of figuresBeat critical the the of has won of aslew awards and recognitions, and is amember he’s written also novels, theater, criticism, translations and never enough. With and hints simple the of history poetry thing. And,thing. as inadiscussion about 90years of anything, ticity, of someone who really is. What can you really say torate on inParis, GIBill the inSan settled Francisco, taught to her equal poetry. that So was really first the writing Idid.” letters inFrench,” he says. “She considered so herself apoet, day, and aprecedent was established that can’t abook cen be cal destination.cal Recent works include of revered the American Academy of and Arts Letters. He’s essays. His exhibited has art visual been around world. the He cited of time, and asbooks all one of most the popular poetry sored ifthere is any “redeeming value” social text. inthe The got separated from my French aunt to write Iused her long about Lawrence Ferlinghetti? In craft the every writing,of an activist,and many paths of conversation to lead apoliti author’s own artist, activistand publisher’s globe-trotting life: “I was inFrance for most of my first fiveyears, I when and The list goes on—but lists rarely conveysense a of authen The most youcan Born do is in make alist: Yonkers, N.Y., What can you really say inan introduction about word word it dances off his tongue and intothe his writing career. Ahint at adifferenttime and place, here’s way acertain Lawrence Ferlinghetti says the , Ferlinghetti was arrested on obscenity charges. poem A Coney Island of the Mind , the word, the that has largely come to define ;

and Poetry asInsurgent Art. and Other Poems Americus, Book 1 has frequently been poh-eem. in the in the ; Life Life - - - - - A poem is usually a visual turn-on to begin with, and the idea is turn-on usually avisual with, andA poem to begin idea the You’ve expressed adislikeaboutdiscussingthewrit Time wears down pencil. the Are youstillwritingconsistently? when Iwaswhen on there GIBill the 1940s.I’ve inthe had abig I’ve more or less retired from active participation. …I’m I often get invited to universities, theand English pro I have same the perception of world, the or perception the of I’m writing, but still Iwas painting long before Ihad any Navy shipyard. I’ve spending alot been of there. time I

What’s day-to-daylifelikethesedays?Are youstill How doyouthinktimechangesawriter? fessor or writing the professor or writing the workshop reality, as apainter. If you’ll notice, any [in]practically poem interested in“craft”—I think it’s amiserable wordbe to is to make it into something more than perception. avisual in February, Museo inthe diRoma. creative outletthatentrancesyoumore thantheothers? In termsofthepaintingandwriting,isthere anyone heard inasingle word like have abig retrospective of of sixdecades painting inRome the second-floorthe windows of CityLights. political.Mostly most oftime we experience—the can really dois listen. professor always wants to know my routine and doIstart thing published as awriter. painting Istarted inParis etc., and doyou write on computer the or or pencil what, of mine that you may have at hand, you’ll it’s see visual. very studio here for last the 35years shipyard—in inthe the involved atCityLights? important inadiscussionaboutthecraftofwriting? ing process. Whyisthat, and whatdoyouthink about once aweek. My blog is signs that Ipaint and put in about 10blocks from bookstore the and Ishow up there applied to poetry. you Do Keats think and Shelley thought and Ialways say, “It’s secret.” atrade I’m So really not day,at every time acertain etc., doIbrush my first, teeth Special 90th Anniversary Edition poh-eem

—not to mention his life writersdigest.com I55 is -

- - - THE WD INTERVIEW: LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI

90 Years of Ferlinghetti: A Timeline

1919 1941 1953 1955

1910 1920 1930 1940 1950

1919: Born March 24 in Yonkers, N.Y. with Peter D. Martin. 1955: Founds is arrested (and later prevails) on obscenity 1941: Earns journalism degree from UNC– City Lights imprint with his first book, charges. 1958: A Coney Island of the Mind Chapel Hill; soon after, enlists in the U.S. Pictures of the Gone World; meets Allen is published; City Lights reportedly rejects Navy; takes part in the Normandy inva- Ginsberg in his bookstore. 1957: Copies of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road and William S. sion. 1953: Opens City Lights Bookstore Ginsberg’s Howl are seized and Ferlinghetti Burroughs’ Naked Lunch. 1960: Buys land about “craft”? In fact, can you imagine Keats, Shelley, distinction between nonobjective and abstract. But it’s Wordsworth or any of the other great poets, let’s say Dante, neither of those. My poetry is definitely figurative. In can you imagine them going to a poetry workshop? So other words, it’s a description of what’s actually before why is there this rash—it’s more than a rash—why is this you in the visual world. Or that’s the way the poem plenitude of poetry workshops all over the country? begins. I think it may be in my book Poetry as Insurgent Art: The poem should have a public surface, by which I What do you think is the best way to pick up the mean anybody who hasn’t had any education could still art of writing? understand the poem. Then below that it should have If you’re going to be a writer you should sit down and write a subjective or subversive level, which would make the in the morning, and keep it up all day, every day. Charles poem more important than just a surface lyric that’s just Bukowski, no matter how drunk he got the night before or giving you a nice picture. no matter how hungover he was, the next morning he was at his typewriter. Every morning. Holidays, too. He’d have a What was the writing world like when you started, bottle of whiskey with him to wake up with, and that’s what and how is it different now, in a broad view? he believed. That’s the way you became a writer: by writing. It seems to me the poetry world is in a sad state these When you weren’t writing, you weren’t a writer. days. It seems to me it’s gotten back to somewhat the way it was before ’s Howl was published, which What do you think makes great writing? really was a watershed moment in the 1950s. AfterHowl The wordgreat is really overused these days because the was published, poetry was different. It was a whole new English language seems to have a paucity of adjectives. I world in poetry. … You didn’t hear any more—well, there mean, great writing is anything that gives you a view of was plenty of it still—but academic poetry took a backseat. reality that you never had before. For instance, when I first And so the Beats changed all that, and now today it seems read Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, I said, “Gosh, I’ve never seen like the Beat revolution never happened. We’ve got more the world like this before.” And that’s what great writers do. poetry published, more poetry written and more poetry You could say that with Don Quixote, or you could say it workshops today than ever in the history of the world. But with Shakespeare, or Whitman. it seems to me it’s pretty tame; not only politically, but gen- erally in experimental avant-garde directions, I don’t see A Coney Island of the Mind? any great new vision.

Well, I hope so. NEELEY SETH Do you think that’ll change with time? It’s been said that your work can’t be judged by I don’t know; it depends what happens to the world. They conventional literary standards. How do you sum say that great art is made by hunger and passion. I think up your style and approach? the population may get very hungry in the next 50 years. The poetry is figurative poetry. In other words, it’s not The ecological disaster that’s descending on us, everyone is abstract and it’s not nonobjective. In painting I make a still mostly ignoring it. VIA FERLINGHETTI PHOTO ©

56 I I January 2010 1957 1958 1960 1988 1994 1998 2003 2009

1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

near ; his cabin later serves as the 1998: Deemed San Francisco’s poet Letters. 2009: Ferlinghetti, a documentary, inspiration for Kerouac’s Big Sur. 1988: City laureate. 2003: City Lights celebrates 50 debuts; the filmHowl, about the obscen- Lights rallies to have San Francisco streets years; Ferlinghetti wins lifetime achieve- ity trial, is set for a 2010 release, starring named after writers and other creatives. ment award from the Authors Guild and James Franco as Ginsberg and Andrew 1994: Receives his own “Via Ferlinghetti.” is inducted into the Academy of Arts and Rogers as Ferlinghetti. —Major source: Lawrence Ferlinghetti: Poet-at-Large by Larry Smith

How do you think written freedom of expression has bookstores, he didn’t hang out in writers circles; after he fared in the years since the Howl court ruling? made it, he would stack his Mercedes with a couple of cases [The court] ruled that a work could not be judged obscene of beer and go to the racetrack and he’d play the ponies. So if it had the slightest redeeming social importance. Even I really didn’t see much of him even though we were the though it was only in municipal court, that precedent has publisher that really got him national attention. held up all these years and it really opened the floodgates on publishing, especially with a press like , What was it about the ’s writing that which shortly thereafter published ’sTropic of had such a power that took hold? Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn. Simply we were saying things that no one else had said. Either saying it in a new way or what they were saying was Why didn’t you ever view yourself as a Beat? new. Sometimes both. But if you read mine closely you’ll I was a generation before the Beats. When I arrived in see it’s not a new way of writing poetry—I stole many tech- San Francisco for the first time in 1951, I was still wear- niques, especially from people like E.E. Cummings, and the ing my French beret and we were bohemians. Bohemians whole avant-garde tradition; James Joyce. In poetry and in were what they called a dissident artist before the Beats. painting both, you’re constantly stealing from the past. I The Beats didn’t make a name for themselves until the mean, Picasso stole from everyone. You could say that we’re ’50s. I lived in Greenwich Village in the ’40s and we were summarizing the past by theft and allusion. … Those are bohemians. The Beats were a younger generation than the first two lines of my bookAmericus . myself and I got associated with them through City Lights Bookstore, as their publisher. What writing do you personally find exciting right now? For quite awhile now, it seems the most interesting writing Do you ever get tired of talking about them? is coming from third-world writers and from women writ- Well, yeah, I mean [laughs], it’s as if nothing else excit- ers, both in and elsewhere, because, you could ing has happened in the poetry world in the last 50 years. say, whitey had his revolution, and the third world is still There must be other subjects to talk about. having its, and so are women.

Who do you miss most of the Beat Generation writers? Have you been tempted to retire? I miss them personally. Like Allen Ginsberg—I think one I didn’t know that painters and writers retired. They’re like

SETH NEELEY SETH of his most enduring traits was his compassion for every- soldiers—they just fade away. WD one. It was really a Buddhist compassion. I really miss him, and I miss Charles Bukowski, the old roustabout. Of course ZACHARY PETIT (blog.writersdigest.com/promptly) is the I didn’t hang out with him because he didn’t hang out in managing editor of WD.

[email protected]: For more from Lawrence Ferlinghetti—and­ an extended timeline of his writing life­—log

VIA FERLINGHETTI PHOTO © on to writersdigest.com/article/lawrence-ferlinghetti.

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