Diane di Prima's new book, The Poetry Deal, is, somewhat improbably, her very best. I'm a long time fan of her poetry - until this volumeRevolutionary Letters, was my favorite - and I am simply ecstatic at how truly great this collection is. Here are two of her briefer poems, ON THE TRAIN and TO A STUDENT, from The Poetry Deal:
ON THE TRAIN 1. green shack in Richmond "Merlin's" printed on the door
just that
2. "Halfway to Baghdad" says the headline. The graffiti reads "Whitey repent"
TO A STUDENT POEMS are angels come to bring you the letter you wdn't sign for earlier, when it was delivered by your life
Want to buy this and support one of the great small press publishers of all time? Buy it directly from City Lights, at a 30% discount - cheaper than that big virtual box store.
Or a favorite independent bookshop near you.
You'll love it.
in my ramshackle hut
she holds her head high...
the peony
Today is the 90th birthday of Lawrence Ferlinghetti. He has been the touchstone of generations of poetry readers; if you had never read poetry, somehow, somewhere, if you had the inclination to, you'd run into the work of Lawrence Ferlinghetti. It seems as though serendipity and that is his magic.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti is first and foremost a word magician (tired, I keyed musician, and he, of course is that, too: a word musician). His Coney Island of the Mind seems to be on everybody's list of best poetry books and deservedly so. Even so, he is hardly a one-trick pony. Here's a poem from his first collection, Pictures of the Gone World, published in 1955:
25
---------The world is a beautiful place --------------------------------------------to be born into if you don't mind happiness ------------------------------- ---not always being --------------------------------------- --------- -- ---so very much fun ------if you don't mind a touch of hell -----------------------------------------now and then --------------just when everything is fine -------------------------------------------------because even in heaven --------------------------they don't sing -------------------------------------------------all the time
------------The world is a beautiful place -----------------------------------------to be born into --------if you don't mind some people dying ------------------------------------------------------all the time -----------------------or maybe only starving ---------------------------------------------------some of the time --------------------which isn't half so bad -------------------------------------------------if it isn't you
In far-out poetry ---------------- ---the heart bleeds upon the page ---------------------------------------------------------shamelessly --------as printer's ink bleeds onto ---------------------------------------the fine tooth of paper As blood in its rage -----------------------beats through the body --------------------------------------------------blind in its courses Leaving its indelible imprints --------------------those fine tattoos of living ----------------------------------------------------known as poems
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Finally from the 2001 collection, How to Paint Sunlight (not available via City Lights - o.p., maybe?), his beautiful elegy for the most beautiful Allen Ginsberg:
Allen Ginsberg is Dying
Allen Ginsberg is dying It's in all the papers It's on the evening news A great poet is dying But his voice ----------------won't die His voice is on the land In Lower Manhattan in his own bed he is dying There is nothing to do about it He dying the death that everyone dies He is dying the death of the poet He has a telephone in his hand and he calls everyone from his bed in Lower Manhattan All around the world This is Allen ----------------the voice says Allen Ginsberg calling How many times have they heard it over the long great years He doesn't have to say Ginsberg All around the world in the world of poets there is only one Allen I want ed to you he says He tells them what's happening what's coming down on him Death the dark lover going down on him His voice goes by satellite over the land over the Sea of Japan where he once stood naked trident in hand like a young Neptune a young man with black beard standing on a stone beach It is high tide and the seabirds cry The waves break over him now and the seabirds cry on the San Francisco waterfront There is a high wind There are great whitecaps lashing the Embarcadero Allen is on the telephone His voice is on the waves I am reading Greek poetry The sea is in it Horses weep in it The horse of Achilles weep in it here by the sea in San Francisco where the waves weep They make a sibilant sound a sibylline sound Allen -------they whisper -----------------------Allen
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Happy birthday, Mr. F. Send him a present; order a book or two of his work from City Lights Books, the finest independent shop in America. And, ah, what the hay, know how you like to give yourself a little something for your birthday, especially the older you get? Well, here's a little present from the younger Ferlinghetti (1955 again, this time "#2" from Pictures of a Gone World) to his older Lawrence-self, accompanied by the Pan-like, multi-faceted David Amram:
This week's back issue from the Lilliput Review Archive comes from April 1993, some nearly 16 odd years later. Odd might be the operative word, if the 16 years previous to those had not been a good deal odder. Here's four short flashes of times gone by:
Weak with Doubt
catching a butterfly who was ready to suffer
Vogn
The Right Moment
standing through the windshield that the car behind you didn't have
Stacey Sollfrey
Getting ready
my mind walks out of here
swoops down flights of stairs
and glides to a gutter pigeon its stiff body vibrating
about to fly
Sanford Fraser
Ice Out
--------raging torrents, black waters rushing by quiet nighttime hours, carrying whispers of ancient female ghosts along on gentle river winds, dusty voices, long gone pioneer wives and mothers, once again searching for hope amid new spring trilliums, wild cherry petals.
T. K. Splake
To finish, a greeting to spring from the master:
borrowing the umbrella-hat daffodil... sleeping sparrow
Issa translated by David Lanoue
Enjoy it all - as long as autumn seems to linger, spring flies by.
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