THE AGE DEMANDED

The age demanded that we sing
And cut away our tongue.

The age demanded that we flow
And hammered in the bung.

The age demanded that we dance
And jammed us into iron pants.

And in the end the age was handed
The sort of shit that it demanded.

--Ernest Hemingway, 1922

POETRY AS INSURGENT ART

I am signaling you through the flames. The North Pole is not where it used to be. Manifest Destiny is no longer manifest. Civilization self-destructs. The goddess Nemesis is knocking at the door…

What are poets for in such an age? What is the use of poetry? If you would be a poet, create works capable of answering the challenge of Apocalyptic times, even if this means sounding apocalyptic. You have to decide if bird cries are cries of ecstasy or cries of despair, by which you will know if you are a tragic or a lyric poet. Conceive of love beyond sex. Be subversive, constantly questioning reality and the status quo. Strive to change the world in such a way that there’s no further need to be a dissident. Read between the lives, and write between the lines. Be committed to something outside yourself. Be passionate about it. But don’t destroy the world, unless you have something better to replace it.

If you would snatch fame from the flames, where is your burning bow, where are your arrows of desire, where your wit on fire?

The master class starts wars. The lower classes fight it. Governments lie. The voice of the government is often not the voice of the people.

Speak up, act out! Silence is complicity. Be the gadfly of the state and also its firefly. And if you have two loaves of bread, do as the Greeks did: sell one with the coin of the realm, and with the coin of the realm buy sunflowers.

Wake up! The world’s on fire!

Have a nice day!

-Lawrence Ferlinghetti, from "Poetry as Insurgent Art"

http://www.democracynow.org/2007/12/24/legendary_beat_generation_bookseller_and_poet

HOWL

Howl. On the website for Pacifica radio the other day you could hear Allen Ginsberg reading the poem "Howl," a landmark in literature of the twentieth century. You may have read it in a battered City Lights edition, or more recently in your Norton Anthology of Poetry in college.

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
           madness, starving hysterical naked,
    dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn
           looking for an angry fix,
    angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly
           connection to the starry dynamo in the machin-
           ery of night, 

"The occasion was the 50th anniversary of a court ruling that found the poem had “redeeming social importance” and was thus not obscene." NYTimes, Oct 4, 07.

But they didn't play the poem on the air, fearing the FCC's fines might shut them down. Another step backward for "freedom"? For extra credit, define "free."

Here's a link to the Pacifica broadcast "online" that they didn't air. http://www.pacifica.org/program-guide/op,segment-page/station_id,4/segment_id,469/