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Virtual Poetry Circle: Lawrence Ferlinghetti

With the return of the Virtual Poetry Circle, I hope that you’ll read the poem or listen. I’ll leave the comments open for discussion, first impressions, emotional reactions. I’d love to hear what you think about today’s poem from Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

Feel free to share poems you are reminded of, favorite lines, and whatever comes to mind when reading this poem.

While I find this very egocentric in that poets can save the world, I do like that he reminds us how powerful words can be.

295th Virtual Poetry Circle

Welcome to the 295th Virtual Poetry Circle!

Remember, this is just for fun and is not meant to be stressful.

Keep in mind what Molly Peacock’s book suggested.

Look at a line, a stanza, sentences, and images; describe what you like or don’t like; and offer an opinion. If you missed my review of her book, check it out here.

Today’s poem is from Lawrence Ferlinghetti, recited by Madison Niermeyer:

I am Waiting

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 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 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
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
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
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 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 awaiting
perpetually and forever
a renaissance of wonder
What do you think?

Coney Island Hot Dogs

I know, I know…I haven’t posted any literary activity in a long while. Sorry about all that. I have posted on my other blog about mundane activities if you are interested in those.

Today’s post is about a book of poetry, which many people have probably already read or at least should have read some of the poems in various journals by now. Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s “A Coney Island of the Mind,” instantly brought me back to my days in Worcester, Mass., and its Coney Island hot dog restaurant/stand. Yes, the title is the instant memory recaller for me, not so much the poems. The title reminded me of pre-college and the first couple years of college when friends and I would stop by and get cheap hot dogs with mustard and other condiments and the giant dill pickles for $1. We stuffed ourselves silly, only to be hungry again later.

Enough of my reminiscing, let’s get back to the poetry.

One of my favorite poems in this volume is “Dog.” As a dog owner, who often personifies her pet, I can completely see my dog acting in the same way the dog in the poem does. For instance, “The dog trots freely in the street/and sees reality/and the things he sees/are his reality.” However, this is not just a dog, but a metaphor on some level for the working man, though Ferlinghetti does not make this abundantly clear to the reader until the latter portion of the poem. “He’s afraid of Coit’s Tower/but he’s not afraid of Congressman Doyle/although what he hears is very discouraging, ” and “He will not be muzzeled/Congressman Doyle is just another/fire hydrant/to him.” I like the simple language the poet uses to set the scene of a dog walking down the street and what he sees, but it is how he views the world that intrigues the reader.

Another of my favorite poems in the volume is “9,” with its amusing language to accurately pinpoint the reality of drunken encounters. Many of the other poems in the book are explicit in their depiction of adolescent fumbling in love and lust, but the language often has a lighter tone to prevent the reader from believing the poet or poem lectures them about human interaction. In fact, the lighter language helps to alleviate anxieties about sexual situations and human interactions to display the more amusing side of these encounters. In poem “9,” Ferlinghetti writes “but then this dame/comes up behind me see/and says/you and me could really exist/wow I says/only the next day/she has bad teeth.”

Also unique in this volume are several poems, which the author specifies should be spoken to jazz accompaniment, rather than merely read on a printed page. One of them, titled “Autobiography,”contains the song-like language: “I rest/I have travelled./I have seen goof city./I have seen the mass mess./I have heard Kid Ory cry./I have heard a trombone preach./I have heard Debussy/strained thru a sheet.”

I highly recommend this poetry volume to anyone interested in amusing language and human interaction commentary. I love the imagery of these poems as well.