Lawrence Monsanto Ferlinghetti (March 24, 1919 – February 22, 2021)

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In 1958, stationed at Treasure Island waiting for discharge from the Navy, I first visited City Lights and bought a copy of A Coney Island of the Mind that I carried with me throughout my university years and from which I taught throughout my career as professor of Creative Writing and Literature. Now, as Berkeley, California’s first Poet Laureate, it was from that same copy that I read at the Koret Auditorium, San Francisco Public Library on March 17, 2019—to celebrate Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s 100th year—“Constantly Risking Absurdity” (a poem that I taught in all of my Introduction to Poetry and American Literature courses).

R.J.G.

--------------------In the Circus of the Soul

-------------for Lawrence Ferlinghetti on his 100th year

His light was that of city lights, 

the coney island lights that played 

tricks, some wondrous, on his mind. 

He left the big apple to wonder & to seek 

a golden one & came to the golden state 

to find it by the golden gate where the poet-

painter-bookworm grew his wings & godfathered 

a generation with a jazz beat, beat tired & out 

of beat with an America smug & cruel in its fear 

of not being great enough, bums in search of zen 

beatitude on the road to the land's end 

where they could not but turn the yawp into a howl 

that the poet-painter-purveyor of words broadcast 

to a prude U.S. of A. & defended its right 

to be heard wide, the howl that called west 

a hippier generation to counter a culture bent 

on death and start a revolution of love & joy enough 

to stop a hopeless war. And all along, in the circus 

of the soul, big hearted but no bum, our tight- rope-

walking larryferli man courted gravity-defying 

blind beauty that more often than not, 

he caught in midflight, because he gave her sight.

-------------------© Rafael Jesús González 2019

----------------------Poet Laureate, City of Berkeley 

--------------------------En el circo del alma

-----------------a Lawrence Ferlinghetti en su centésimo año

Su luz era de las luces de la ciudad, 

las luces de la isla de coney que le hacían 

trucos, algunos de maravilla, en su mente. 

Dejó la manzana grande para vagar y buscar 

una dorada y vino al estado dorado

para encontrarla en la puerta dorada donde 
-------el poeta-

pintor-ratón de biblioteca creció sus alas 
------y apadrinó 

una generación con ritmo de jazz, cansada y fuera 

de ritmo con una América presumida y cruel 
-----en su temor 

de no ser lo bastante grande, holgazanes en busca  

de beatitud zen en el camino al fin de las tierras 

donde no pudieron mas que volver el gañido 
-----en aullido 

que el poeta-pintor-proveedor de palabas difundió 

a un EE. UU. de A. mojigato y defendió su derecho 

de ser oído ampliamente, el aullido que llamó 
-----al oeste 

una generación más jipi contra una cultura 
-----propensa 

a la muerte a comenzar una revolución de amor 
-----y goce bastante 

para ponerle el alto a una guerra imposible. 
  ---Y a la vez en el circo 

del alma, corazón grande pero no holgazán 
----- nuestro funambulista

larryferli cortejó a la desafiadora de la gravedad 

belleza ciega que más veces que no 

arrebató a medio vuelo porque le dio visión. 

----------------© Rafael Jesús González 2019

---------------------Poeta Laureado de la Cd. de Berkeley

 

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