Customer Reviews (33)

Coney Island of the Mind
Lawrence Ferlinghetti is a unique poet.He doesn't follow the whole rhyme scheme of average poems but speaks in a casual, conversational manner - a very jazzy type of persona.I enjoyed reading his poems so much that I couldn't put it down. I laughed, I smirked, I felt sad and disgruntled - it was a fantastic collection of poems. As a graphic designer I really appreciated the text layout.The layout helped to emphasize the meaning of the poem and allows the reader to take the poem in. One of the poems that I really enjoyed was in the third section, poem 11.Ferlinghetti is witty and humorous yet deals with heavy issues of the world and of the human condition. These poems will give you insight into the tragic potential of post/modern life.

Not a fan of poetry
I personally am not a fan of poetry, but since I had recently become interested in Beat literature, I felt I must read this collection of poems by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. The book is comprised of three sets of poems. In the first set is a rant against the absurdities of American culture. While I wouldn't consider myself an angry young man, I found this section to be quite refreshing.
The second set of poems, an Oral Message, is meant to be read aloud with jazz accompaniment. These were written in the 50's so it's sort of like a precursor to rap. I think I would have enjoyed this much more if I had seen it performed live.
The final 13 poems are from his first book and deal mostly with death.
Like I said I am not a huge fan of poetry, and most of these poems were case of hit or miss. Most enjoyed a great deal, some I didn't understand at all. Sometimes it was just a case of line or phrase that I found inspiring, but over all I really did enjoy this collection.

"I have risked enchantment..."
... I first read those words oh so many years ago, in the poem "Autobiography," and through the proverbial twists of fate, I've come to live in the Land thereof. There were those initial attractions when this book first came out, the black and white covers of New Directions paperbacks, the visceral title for one who had been to that "down market" fantasy land, Coney Island. Both announced a "path less traveled" from an industry of much hyped "best-sellers" of the big publishing houses. And on the first reading there were the appealing cadences and the tugs to the inchoate feelings that the path more traveled wasn't going to be just right, as in the poems "I Am Waiting" and "Christ Climbed Down."Imagine being outraged about the commercialization of Christmas so far back; Today we'd be nostalgic for those days we'd consider authentic. Prescient Ferlinghetti was also, in "Autobiography," when he said: "I see another war is coming..." for my own autobiography, and the war I was in, and later still, for the war my children were invited to.

But re-reading it some 40 years on, and there is a much deeper appreciation. I've read many of the books and seen the paintings that he makes allusions to, sometimes subtly, sometimes more straightforwardly. There is Hieronymous Bosch, Goya, Robin in Djuana Barnes' "Nightwood," the ending to Joyce's "Ulysses," Thomas Wolfe's "a leaf, a stone, an unfound door," Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath," and Kafka's "Castle." Did he really make it to the Vaucluse to see the summer of sauterelles?Learning French helps in understanding also. What he was trying to say just makes so much more SENSE the second time around, now that you can "get" the analogies without footnotes.

Some lines hit the bull's eye for what we would become: "...on a concrete continent spaced with bland billboards illustrating imbecile illusions of happiness..." and "...from Lost Angeles to Heaven and promising Free Elections..."Also there is a most fitting rebuke, in the best New Directions' traditions, to the high priests of culture: "'Truth is not the secret of a few' yet you would maybe think so the way some librarians and cultural ambassadors and especially museum directors act, you'd think they had a corner on it the way they walk around shaking their high heads and looking as if they never went to the bath room or anything."

Lawrence Ferlinghetti will turn 90 this month, and congratulations are being accepted at the book store he founded, City Lights Books in San Francisco. Thanks for pointing the way; it took some of us a while to get there. An initial read, or a re-read would be a fitting celebration.

The Work That Keeps On Giving
Ferlinghetti's work is still being read by aspiring poets and artists at poetry readings all across America.I am still impressed no matter how many times I hear different poets read "I Am Waiting."For this poem alone the book is required reading, however the work ripples with great poems.If you love the spoken word or just reading poetry in a book, this work is an icon of modern American literature.Don't miss it.

An indispensible collection!
Like so many others, I discovered this slim volume of poetry as a teenager -- which may be the very best time to do so, as it invariably opens a lot of new doors at a crucial period of development. It certainly did just that for me!

Ferlinghetti brings an easy erudition, a delightful sense of humor, and an expansive humanity to his work. While he recognizes & deplores the human capacity for ignorance, fear & oppression, he never loses hope in our ability to rise above that, to transcend the drab everyday & find something more to life. Indeed, his work calls to us, asks us to do more than merely settle -- but it's always a call, not a command. His beliefs are strong & clear, but he's never hectoring or dogmatic.

Frankly, this volume is worth getting just for the poems "Constantly Risking Absurdity," "Christ Climbed Down," and especially "I Am Waiting" -- but there's so much more here as well! There's genuine wonder & joy in these poems ... and they'll also make you think. Ferlinghetti remains underrated to this day, which is a a pity; but if you sample this classic volume, you'll definitely want to read more of his work. Most highly recommended!

... Read more

Product Description
Two acclaimed poetry volumes, Who Are We Now? (1976) and Landscapes of Living and Dying (1979), are brought together. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Kick written warmth exuding joy
Man oh Man oh Man... this book is WORTH the read and probably worth whatever Amazon's asking for it. It's a thrown down literary jump kick and thinking about Ferlingetti as the "Up Beat" is a good way todescribe the writing style. Ginsberg liked to scratch along the belly ofthe humanistic machine but sweet Lawrence writes poetry (the best of whichi think this book encapsulates) that swings around the golden side of ourexistance. i borrowed this book for awhile and would wake up and read a bitof it and everything became a little clearer, a little sweeter and littlebit more tantalizingly beautiful. this book has the potential to make youhungrier for things and is an easy read in terms of poetry. Oh man oh manoh man... ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Starting From San Francisco
Larry's most disappointing effort. On the positive side, it does contain 'The Great Chinese Dragon'.

striking up for a new world
This very enjoyable read, marking a change in the poet's style and direction. Though it falters at points during the book, those points are few and far between. Profound! ... Read more

Product Description
In 1953 Lawrence Ferlinghetti founded the first paperback bookstore in the United States. In over five decades City Lights, the bookstore and publisher, has become a Mecca for millions. Ferlinghetti’s A Coney Island of the Mind (ND, 1958) is a number one best-selling volume of poetry by any living American poet. Now, New Directions is proud to publish his manifesto in a paperback edition.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

The Power of Words
Ferlinghetti's little book is full of big inspiration. It is a call to take poetry off the page and live the words. Buy extra copies for your friends and loves, for this is essential reading.

Poetic Wisdom
This great little book - small enough to carry in one's back pocket, like a New Testament or the Little Red Book of Chairman Mao - is my new Manifesto. "Poetry deconstructs power. Absolute poetry deconstructs absolutely." Happy deconstructing.

Review - Poetry As Insurgent Art
Ferlinghetti never ceases to amaze. The volume may be slim, but it is rich with Beat philosophy, true to the Cause. This is a must for fans of the Beat poets.

Beautiful
This is the best work of art that I've seen in a long time. Wonderful.

Lawrence of America
More bon mots from the old bard of San Francisco. To this day Ferlinghetti gets confused for a Beat poet. He is in fact a Bohemian poet and artist who only published the Beats. In this book his words are few but to the point. You want to keep this in your back pocket at all times. Who knows when you're gonna need some emergency wisdom!? He is one of the best poets alive and the title of Lawrence of America is well-earned for a man who single-handedly changed the literary landscape of this country. Thank you Lawrence! May the lights of all the cities of the world shine upon you. ... Read more

Product Description
A million copies in print—translated into over a dozen languages—one of the best-sellingand most popular books of poetry ever published, now available in a new hardcover editioncontaining a CD of the author reading hiswork.Ferlinghetti is a national treasure, and hisvoice has become part of our collectiveconscience. Some of his most famous poems fromthis collection such as "I Am Waiting" and"Junkman's Obbligato" were created for jazzaccompaniment. Written in the conservativepost-war 1950s, his poems still resonate, asthey will continue to resonate, with a joyfulanti-establishment fervor that beats a rhythmicportrait of humanity. Ferlinghetti sings of aworld in which "the heart flops over / gasping'Love'," "cadillacs fell thru the trees likerain," and where "we are the same people / onlyfurther from home / on freeways fifty laneswide."

This special 50thAnniversary Edition comes with a newly recordedCD of the author reading the 29 poems of thetitle section of A Coney Island of theMind as well as selections fromPictures of the Gone World. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Awesome then; Awesome now!
This is the first poetry that I ever read and enjoyed.I discovered Ferlinghetti in the 60s in high school.He spoke to my generation.I still love his work.It's a great trip down memory lane, when things outside of ourselves still mattered.This great new edition had a CD of the author reading his poems.

A treasure.
I am still waiting for mine, but read someone elses. I love ferlenghetti and to have his signature - magic.

An under/rated BEAT gem
Coney Island of the Mind has been around so long it's easy to take it for granted. Give this perfect edition another look: apart from one or two weaker poems that sound like Zippy Beatnik parodies, it's a surprisngly strong collection. Support LF while's he's still with us: there's even a cd reading that sounds like George Carlin preparing at home. Buy it. ... Read more

Product Description

A surreal semi-autobiographical blackbookrecord of a semi-mad period of my life, in thatmindless, timeless state most romantics passthrough, confusing flesh madonnas with spiritual ones. This is how the author describes thisextraordinary expatriate novel.

Customer Reviews (5)

not nightwood
I picked this up because a reviewer compared this to Barnes "Nightwood," one of the greatest books ever. I would compare it to some of Bob Dylan's sixties liner notes. I think maybe he was trying to follow Kerouac where he wrote "On the Road" straight through using the "first thought is the best thought." But this effort just shows how unique Kerouac was. This is embarassing gibberish.

A dream walking
A beautiful surrealist novel, this is the sort of thing that's so easy to do badly, and so difficult to do well. It doesn't have a plot so much as an underlying archetypal theme, that of Man pursuing the ideal & unattainable Feminine in all of Her ever-changing aspects; but it does have an ongoing narrative drive, one which unfolds in fluid prose, rich in imagery & emotional intensity. Ferlinghetti perfectly recreates the essence of a dream, which has its own logic & its own needs, and makes its own sort of deep sense. The reader has only to surrender to its flow & be carried along, with one image or scene yielding to another in a continuous surge of immediate experience & psychological surprise. Highly recommended!

just can't put my finger on it
When I looked at the cover of this book, I couldn't even begin to fathom what was inside of it. The story itself is so surreal that it wouldn't even be considered a story by some. The plot (if there is one) is so vauge that I couldn't identify it. And that's what makes ot good! I must read more Ferlenghetti. I have tried my hand at writing such a book, but with no sucess. The text is fresh, not at all dull. Don't try reading this while you're in your right mind, though, and not during the day, either. The scenes that the author creates are sort of harrowing, they linger in your mind, and they stick. Read it in small sections. It took me weeks, but it was worth it.
It is difficult to get used to Ferlenghetti's writing style, but once you're into it, it doesn't let go. It's all sort of like a dream, some parts a nightmare. The ending was hard to understand from my perspective, but it seems to sum everything up. I highly reccomend this book.

random pourings
totally agree with the first reviewer, many more people should be reading this book, expressing as it does a complete subjection to the writer's art and babbling about blowing up to fill a room. like breton perhaps ferlinghetti forgets about popular literary constraints and merely expresses himself in perfect sequences. remember philip quarles in Huxley's point counter point, he says that a good story could come out of one person's seemingly unmemorable journey from the bus stop next to his house and his front room. Ferlinghetti, like so many kids, spends these pages searching for the essence of the female,essentially. yes, read this book whendrunk or tired, or both. or neither.

strange stuff but it all makes sense (maybe)
it worries me that no one has written a review for this book yet. they say i'll be the first. i'm ordering this book through amazon, but i read it my first time many moons ago, back when i was reading "watt" bybeckett, and a lot of other wierd stuff. maybe it was just a point in mylife, but this book spoke to me. wacked out on whatever those crazy beatsgot whacked out on, consumed by passion and equally consumed by confusion,ranting and pouring it all out on the page, this book is what comes outwhen you have nothing else to lose. read it. don't try and make sense ofit. there is no sense when you are crushed by longing. this is a monumentto that feeling you get when being in love makes you a deranged idiot. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

The Buddha in the Poet
The new poems that begin this collection are wonderful; the voice is strong and sure with rich, fresh images and allusions that explode in all kinds of directions. the poems give me a chance to say, "Oh, I get that." or most of it.
I haven't gotten to the selected poems from all of his books, but I know it will be fun to read poems I haven't read in years.
This volume should be a must read for young rebels and writers; should be right up there on the shelf with On The Road and Howl

Total Bliss...
This collection of poems from Ferlinghetti opens the mind due to it's variation of poems from over the years.His style has remained the same yet we see a different side of Ferlinghetti with each era of poems.Thiswas very enjoyable and I recommend it highly.

This compilation is fantastic!
I bought this book after seeing Ferlinghetti speak at my school in New Hampshire.He was fantastic, and his book is even more so. Buy it! ... Read more

Product Description
selections from each of the 52 Pocket Poets books ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Overrated?
I think this book is quite a bit overrated. People speak about this book gushing with sappiness.I guess I should make it clear at this point that I'm not really a big fan of this style of poetry. I think beatnik prose can be pretty good and pretty poetic,but I tend to be a little leary about beatnik literature that is explicitly poetry. Make no mistake about it, there is some good material in here, including some of Mr. Ferlinghetti's stuff and some of Kerouac's and Ginsberg's typical stuff. However, overall, I wouldn't say I'm too impressed.

Nice overview of City Lights poets, but selection problems
This is a pleasingly slick and blocky hardbacked volume offering a nice sampling of every single one of City Lights' pocket poet editions.But I think the selection could be better.

First, and perhaps predictably, the Beats, and above all Ginsberg, get too much space.Not only does Ginsberg have multiple books in the series, he often gets many poems from each book, while other poets only get one.It's very hard to get a real sense for poets who are new to you--and thus to decide if you want to explore them further--from a single poem.Some of the imbalances are mind-boggling.Corso gets one sole poem, while Kerouac (not a BAD poet, but certainly not a great one) gets eight?!

Second, Ferlinghetti seems undecided on the nature of the volume--is it supposed to represent the best poems in the series, or is it a nostalgic history trip?This is most evident in the selections from Ginsberg--which often appear to have been picked simply because they offer explicit or implicit elegies for each of Ginsberg's famous Beat pals.Many of the Ginsberg selections are pretty disposable--yet his best poems, "America" and "Supermarket in California," are left out, and only part II and the footnote of "Howl" are included.

That said, it's nice to get an easy introduction to City Light's offerings beyond the Beats, that's really the book's best feature.There are many wonderful poems by Kenneth Patchen, a perfect pick of O'Hara, as well as Prevert, Nicanor Parra, Norse, even Picasso, Brecht, and Mayakovsky.It makes me wish they had just trimmed the beats out entirely--or given them their own separate City Lights anthology--so we could get a better taste of the others.

Beat book
A wonderful and portable collection of poems about being on the go and experiencing life to its fullest.

Captures the true beat essence in delightful and sundry ways.

A rare joy in the world of poetry. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

New Pictures
"Pictures of the Gone World" had not been so fully praised as Ferlinghetti's next book of poems, "A Coney Island of the Mind". The only reason I can come up with is the extensive use of surrealist imagery and references to other poets, painters, sculptors etc., that the poems are full with. But in "Coney Island" there is a similar creative procedure--even the line order is "floating", as in "Pictures", so why is this book less known than "Coney Island"? It is probably not a matter of quality; probably more people feel attracted to read a book about Coney Island than one with a title which at first sight doesn't seem to say too much about its content.
The poems incuded in "Pictures" are nevertheless great. This collection of verse is probably one of the most representative works during the Beat generation, along with Ginsberg's "Howl and other poems" (also published in City Lights Books) and Kerouac's "On the Road". Ferlinghetti succesfully intertwines surrealistic and dadaistic tendencies with oral speech, complex verbalization processes such as ekphrasis, which show the poet's skills at his best.
This second edition brings us 18 new poems, which every Beat fan must get. Some of these new poems are quite remarkable, such as "Surfers are poets too", and there are some "addenda" to the previous ones. For example, no. 6 includes a whole new stanza, and words in no. 1 have been changed. This 1995 edition is also a collector's item, for it was published to celebrate 40 years of City Lights publishing.

Word snap-shots of life
I am embarassed to say that I picked this book up on my last visit to City Lights (several years ago) but I never actually read it. Other than for a piece or two in an anthology, I had never read Ferlinghetti, period. Having enjoyed the hospitality of the upstairs poetry room, that seemed somehow ill-mannered of me.

Simply put, I liked this collection. The images and meanings are more subtle than a lot of poets with Beat roots. He can really paint a word picture to put you in the scene. You instantly soak up the nuances of the whole. Then maybe he'll nudge you, ever so slightly, into seeing the absurdity in it. Or perhaps he'll interject a reminder of your own mortality in a simular subtle way. It is appropriate that one of the poems deals with Edward Hopper. I get that Hopperesque quality of an observer in an existential urban landscape with much of the collection.

About the only difference that I detected from the first 27 poems (written by 1955) and the 18 new ones (new in 1995) is a difference in rhythm. The older poems have much more of that classic coffee house beat- at least in my head. Of yes, he also uses the term "cyberpunk" in one of them.... But the word painting, and sense of subtle absurdity, is still right on the money.

refreshingly fresh and innocent and playful and insightful
This has to be my favorite volume of poetry to date (yet I am still young and have much to read).I found it "refreshing" and "light" if you will, yet at the same time taking on some real insight.My favorite poems in the volume include "Heaven"; which I take as almost a poetic criticism OF poetry, and "London"; which takes on issues of physical beauty.All the poems in here I enjoy immensely.Well worth your small investment. (Plus it has historic value being the first in the legendary Pocket Poets Series. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

thought provoking, breathtaking, amazing
calling ferlinghetti's work anything less than the above would be blasphemous, but really, what great writing! i love his observations and insights on different places and people. and the way he puts words together, like "concrete crete", in one poem. i read these poems, and sit dumbfounded, in public places no less, breathless, with a goofy grin on my face. these poems are absolute masterpieces. a must for any europhile, traveler, tourist, beatnik-wannabe. heck, a must in general.

thought provoking, breathtaking, amazing
calling ferlinghetti's work anything less than the above would be blasphemous, but really, what great writing! i love his observations and insights on different places and people. and the way he puts words together, like "concrete crete", in one poem. i read these poems, and sit dumbfounded, in public places no less, breathless, with a goofy grin on my face. these poems are absolute masterpieces. a must for any europhile, traveler, tourist, beatnik-wannabe. heck, a must in general. ... Read more

Product Description

Product Description
poetry, tr L Ferlinghetti & F Valente ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

One of the many shades of Pasolini....
Many here in the US know Pier Paolo Pasolini as a filmmaker, and many know him solely for his last film, Salo or the 120 Days of Sodom, arguably the most disturbing, disgusting, and controversial movie ever made.He was a multi-faceted man to say the least.He was an essayist, a political activist, a playwright, a novelist, and a poet (in addition to being a filmmaker).This is a small but vital collection of some of his most famous poems.My favorite one is "But It Was a Naked and Swarming Italy", along with "The Wealth of Knowing".This is a reasonably priced, tiny collection of Pasolini's poetry, and is definitely worth picking up for anyone who is interested in this brilliant, controversial artist.

A passionate and politically charged voice from Italy
"Roman Poems," by Pier Paolo Pasolini, is a bilingual edition with Italian and English versions of the poems on facing pages.The translations are by Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Francesca Valente.The book includes a preface by Alberto Moravia, who describes Pasolini as "a civil poet," by which Moravia means "a poet who sees his native land in a way that the powerful of the country do not and cannot see it."There are a number of recurring themes and motifs in this book: the urban environment, poverty, politics, the life of a poet. Many of the poems have a strong autobiographical or confessional flavor; a number of them deal with death.

Another thing that struck me about these poems was that many of them evoke a gritty, down-and-dirty sense of life.Pasolini's words evoke a world of "sweaty delivery boys," "the sticky smell of coal," "ancient whores," and "alleys choked with darkness and garbage."Much of the book is very rooted in specific places; Pasolini cites such geographic names as the Viale Marconi, Trastevere Station, the fields of Aniene, Piazza Bologna, and the Garibaldi Bridge.Pasolini creates a particularly powerful and mesmerizing portrait of the city.He takes the reader from "the bourgeois quarter" to "a poor people's house at the city's far edge," and vividly appeals to the senses as he describes what he encounters on the journey.

Some of the poems that appealed to me the most are as follows."The Privilege of Thinking" offers the speaker's thoughts and observations while on a train ride; the poem is very down-to-earth, yet also has a transcendent quality."Sex, Consolation for Misery" is a darkly prophetic vision of a "new world" being born; the poem offers a paradoxical message and hallucinatory imagery."I Work All Day. . ." combines a playful touch with a political edge as the speaker reflects on his role as a poet."But It Was a Naked and Swarming Italy" offers a vivid and passionate portrait of a young poet living in poverty in Italy in the 1950s and 1960s.But my favorite piece in the collection is "Towardthe Caracalla Baths," which combines deliciously rich and evocative language with an effective parallel structure as the poet describes a diverse group of characters heading towards the title baths.

The back cover of the book notes that Pasolini was born in 1922 in Bologna, and was murdered in 1975 near Rome.I found this book very hard to get into on my first reading.But as I re-read the poems, Pasolini's language and vision began to really come alive for me; he may be one of those poets whose work rewards patience and attentiveness.In "Roman Poems" Pasolini is very introspective and psychological, but also casts a penetrating cinematic gaze on 20th century Italy in both its beauty and its pain.

An Italian Ginsberg, but more focused
Pier Paolo Pasolini is probably better-known as the director of movies like "Salo", but his poetry is at least as good as his movies, and probably better. "Roman Poems" compiles a number of his eccentric little rhapsodies: mostly free verse, dealing with topics of homosexuality, politics, and the beauty of the city. I don't know how much these poems will interest those who aren't intrigued by Pasolini as a cultural figure, but they're certainly worthwhile.

Prose from the underground
Pier Paolo Pasolini was most remembered as a controversial filmmaker -- Salo;120 days of Sodom is his most notorious, famous because it proceeded his tragic death. Likewise, Pasolini possessed others talents: painting, which was undermost and, as already proved on this site, writing. Pasolini began writing prose/poetry at an early age but soon developed his talent as a fiction writer (some of his films were originally novels). Roman Poems, beautifully translated by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, is a collection of Pasolini's scribblings: mainly prose, eulogies, odes, and long-poems. These compositions were compiled from different sources: some books dating from Pasolini's teenage years, others sometime before his death. Roman Poems presents many themes but usually centers around Pasolini's lifestyle as a street hustler and derelict; his poems are generally set in his Roman homeland --hence the titled. Moreover, Pasolini has created a ideology all his own, attacking groups as the aristocracy, Fascist Italy, Capitalism, and sympathizing the proletariat and the underdog. Of all the pieces in the book, the ones that stands out the most is "A Sentimental Education," and "The Resistance and its Light;" both exhibiting intense imagery and spirit for which Pasolini was known for. Unfortunately, Pasolini was persecuted and despised by many people: indeed an untimely death for an artist of his time. It's sad to say that people still have a hard time comprehending Pasolini, and this incomprehension usually manifests itself as deep-seated hatred. Roman Poems presents Pasolini as a man who anticipated a change in politics as well as a change in art. Those who will read are taking a great step. ... Read more