Poetry As Insurgent Art by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Poetry As Insurgent Art

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Kerouac's On the Road supposedly defined the beat generation. Its patron publisher, Lawrence Ferlinghetti was the force behind City Lights, and an impressive poet in his own right. Poetry as Insurgent Art is an attempt to redefine what it means to be a poet. Compiled from material both new and old, this is a rather direct address to writers.

While much of this ends up being the kind of artistic battle call that made his Generation famous,  there are some very valuable insights here for new writers. Obviously this is just for poets, but Ferlinghetti seems to be tidying up the poetry world before his generation checks out all thogether. The Beats played with form and meaning in poetry. They used tropes that went on for pages, and abandoning the metrical foot almost altogether. Ferlinghetti, Corso and Ginsberg are wholly unrelated to Lord Byron, except in title.

Poetry has fallen on hard times, and its place of importance in literature has slowly unraveled in the last four decades. Poets seem to be terminally infected with the avant garde, and performance poetry borders on irrelevance most of the time. Ferlinghetti calls upon poets to make their songs, to challenge everything from everyday perception to accepted poetic devices. There is a sentiment that the urban poets suffer from the same disconnect as their environment.

Ferlinghetti seems to diagnose the problem with poetry easily. On the other hand, his solution is beneath him. Ferlinghetti's best poems deal with extreme subtleties of character, and experience. Poetry doesn't have subtlety. It seems to buy into the myths Ginsberg created with Howl. Mad poets scream into the night, and deride mad leaders with all their goddamn bombs. Poetry needs more than purpose and form, it needs a renewed writers. Writers ready not just to challenge the leaders, but to challenge poetry. It is easy to be a rebel right now, as times seem to call for rebels. Poetry needs to be ahead what is expected, and I'm not saying rebellion by conforming. That is for painters and playwrights. No poetry must examine closely the rebels, as closely as the leaders. Ferlinghetti has a cadence to arms, but no battle plan. I expect better for someone who qualifies as a living Poet Zen Master.