Just in time for National Poetry Month is this new collection of poet Lawrence Ferlighetti’s (b. 1919) works. Ferlinghetti is long associated through his City Lights bookstore with (and a patron of) Beat authors/poets like Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, who actually preceded them with his own poems. Ferlinghetti’s Greatest Poems is a great introduction to his work.
Written in a more observant, down-to-earth style that doesn’t try to alienate the reader, Ferlinghetti takes aim at various subjects. Among them are childbirth (“True Confessional”), divorce (“People Getting Divorced”), social norms (“Underwear”), Bob Dylan (“Jack of Hearts”), and religion (“The Lord’s Last Prayer”). In 1978’s “Rough Song of Animals Dying”, Ferlinghetti perceptively notes that
The wounds never heal/in the commonwealth of animals/We steal their lives/to feed our own
Ferlinghetti’s voice is that of a man who cannot abide cruelty of any kind to others. His poems sing with sensitive cadences and rhythm. Like jazz, there’s an underlying beat within the stanzas of each composition. The listener’s heart cannot help but be touched by his verse.
Ferlinghetti’s Greatest Poems is a good place to begin discovering the timeless quality of this artist’s work!
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