All language subtitles for Ferlinghetti - A City Light (Christopher Felver 2009)

(typing clicks)

(typewriter ding)

(uptempo jazz)

(typing clicks)

- Lawrence Ferlinghetti is a
more complicated individual

than we are used to having
in American writing.

- He was the most
accessible to me,

the one that reached
me and moved me.

- Lawrence Ferlinghetti
is an old-ass anarchist.

- Lawrence is a bohemian,
became a leftist,

politically conscious.

And then he opened up a
bookstore to reflect that.

- Like many people,
Lawrence has many facets,

many faces, many personas.

- [McClure] Lawrence is
probably the most popular

modern poet.

- [Lebel] Poet is
only one of them.

He is also the publisher,
the activist, the painter.

- [Voiceover] His heroes were

Charlie Chaplin and
Jacques Prevert.

- And as a publisher, he has
brought together one of the

most amazing publishing
houses in the world.

- [Lebel] Lawrence and
the gang at City Lights,

they made the book store,
a center of a village.

- Lawrence was the
mayor of North Beach,

not question about
it. He kept it alive.

- And because he
won his legal case..

He opened up the
doors for all us

to celebrate the rights
of first amendment,

freedom of speech.

- His willingness
to stay involved and
keep foraging ahead,

and keeping it sort
of that fire burning,

with new people always
looking for the next voice

and continuing to publish,
it isn't stuck in the past,

it isn't some 50s,
60s only institution.

It's as alive as anything.

- Ferlinghetti is still
grappling and still

speaking out and using poetry as

kind of the ultimate
freedom of speech.

(mellow jazz)

- [Lawrence] I am waiting
for my case to come up,

and I am waiting for
a rebirth of wonder,

and I am waiting for someone
to really discover America

and I am waiting
for the discovery

of a new symbolic
western frontier,

and I am waiting for
the American eagle

to really spread its wings, and
straighten up and fly right,

and I am waiting for
the war to be fought

which will make the
world safe for anarchy,

and I am waiting for
the final withering away

of all governments,

and I am perpetually waiting
for rebirth of wonder.

Here we are, City
Lights Bookstore,

center of the universe,
San Francisco.

When I arrived in the 1950s,

citizens didn't seem
to consider themselves

part of the United States.

It was still a last frontier,

in more ways than one.

It may still be, and so
that's why the youth today

are still attracted to this.

It's a way out of American
corporate mono-culture,

and materialist
consciousness of the country.

People are still coming
for some reason or other.

Maybe the gold rush
isn't over after all.

- I mean, what the hell
was City Lights Books?

It was a place where you had
a window into literature,

political ideas that were
basically being ignored.

- In the 60s, the radicals
from Berkely would come there

to meet, to plan demonstrations.

The radicals from San
Francisco would go there.

We'd all get together
and talk about things,

speak about what we could do.

And at the same time, we
could sit around in the chairs

and leaf through small
fanzine type poetry magazines

while we were discussing
the serious issues

that we were concerned with.

- This wasn't the
center of wild drinking

or drugs or anything.

You know, it was a place
where you sat down in a chair,

and you read a fucking book.

A guy like Lenny Bruce
would come in to see a book.

He's coming in before a
show to check something,

some writer, some legal book,
censorship, first amendment.

And so this place was
a serious resource.

- [Voiceover] It was like
where the minds went to meet

and to talk over
what we had done

and what we wished to do.

- You know, if our
amendments had addresses,

the address of the first
amendment would be right here

at City Lights Books.

You can find respect for
the first amendment in other

book stores and other publishing
houses across the nation,

but you will never see it,

the first amendment, so
fully, so happily ensconced

as it is here at City Lights
in the city of San Francisco.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti,
congratulations,

literature, culture,
the first amendment

is better because of you.

(cheering)

- The concept of
City Lights Bookstore

in addition to the
press changing our idea

of what a book was, or
what a book of poetry was,

also changed our idea of
what a book store was.

A very democratic idea, right?

The same way with making the
books inexpensive and portable,

breaking open the
doors of the bookstore,

allowing people to come
in and sit and read,

it was all the sense
of bringing literature

out of kind of T. S. Elliot
mold, taking off it's tie,

putting on some
strange looking pants

and bringing it to the people.

- [Lawrence] We became notorious

for publishing the beat poets.

But the beats were only one
generation of dissident writers

that we published
at City Lights.

Writers like Bukowski.

We published Sam Shepard.

Dissident thought,
not necessarily
political all the time.

- He, as a publisher,

had an enormous vision,

starting very small,

building from the
small poem book,

later to novels to translations.

His international fiction
line is fantastic.

- [Lawrence] As a publisher,
City Lights has always been

totally independent, never
taking any government grants,

or any other kind of grants.

Our main focus is
on radical politics,

radical deep ecology,

feminism and poetry.

- There was this kind of
confluence of the revolutionary

openness of the
poetry and a very,

a sort of disrespect
for tradition

and a sense of breaking through,

kind of rolling a
grenade into the library

and breaking a convention.

- That's what his
mission has been.

To create a publishing apparatus

which published him and
a lot of other people.

And that's what you have to do.

He created an iconic publishing
force in City Lights.

That's what Ferlinghetti did.

(cheering)

- Well, when I got
into the scene here,

I discovered North Beach.

Took me quite a while.

I had a painting
studio starting in '52

in Nine Mission street,
the Audiffred buildling,

studio I inherited
from Hassel Smith.

I had an old Austin car and
I came up Columbus and I saw

some guy putting up a
sign right here that said

Pocket Book Shop.

So, for some reason, I
parked, I don't know why.

Except my old friend George
Whitman had just started

his first version
of what's now called

Shakespeare and
Company in Paris.

And it was a used book
store, and I said, well,

that's what I'd like to do,

have a used book
store, sit in the back,

read under a shade and

groan if anybody interrupted me.

(laughing)

So, I came across the street
and I introduced myself,

turned out his name was
Peter D. Martin and he had

a little magazine
called City Lights.

It was the very first
pop culture magazine.

So, I said, what are doing?

He said, I'm starting
a pocket book shop.

And there was a brilliant idea.

There was no paperback
bookstores in this country.

It was just the beginning
of what became known as

the quality
paperback revolution.

He said they had 500 dollars,
I said well, I've got 500, so

it started over a handshake.

(applause)

- In 1955 at the Six
Gallery in San Francisco,

five poets got together.

- Lamantia, McClure, myself,

Philip Whalen, Gary Snyder

with Kenneth Rexroth
as the moderator,

got together and gave a
reading at the Six Gallery

in San Francisco,

where I first read Howl.

And where all of us
as a poetic group

all got together
on the same stage

with Kerouac in the audience,

with Neal Cassady
in the audience.

- [McClure] I think we
discovered what the meaning of

reading out loud was.

None of expected to have a
publisher, but the idea was

speak to people directly

with poetry that
couldn't be published.

And lo and behold, Howl,

which certainly
couldn't be published,

was published by
Lawrence Ferlinghetti

who was there that night

and sent a telegram
to Allen the next day

asking Allen to publish Howl.

- Now, as you may have
seen in the papers,

collector of customs,
Chester McFee,

confiscated 520 copies of a
paper bound volume of poetry

entitled Howl and Other
Poems by Allen Gingsberg.

You wouldn't want your
children to come across it.

- The juvenile department

of the San Francisco
police department

arrested Lawrence's bookstore
manager that evening

whose name was Shig Morau,

and also put out a
warrant for the arrest

of Lawrence Ferlinghetti,
who wasn't there that day.

Lawrence turned himself in,

and was subjected to a trial
that they thought was going

to be a disaster.

- Lawrence had anticipated that
and he had gone to the ACLU

and asked whether the
ACLU would defend him

in the event he ran into
this kind of situation.

Ernie Besig, the executive
director of the ACLU at the time

said of course, free
speech is free speech.

We will defend this.

I was a young lawyer and
I was handed the task

of preparing the
constitutional argument.

- [Morgan] Judge Horn had
just been through a big trial

in San Francisco.

Some teenage shoplifters
who he had sentenced

to see the movie "The
Ten Commandments."

He was a conservative,
born-again Christian who

took no nonsense from people.

And so, of course, they felt
they had lost the case for Howl

just by the selection
of the judge.

Lawrence had laid his
whole career on the line.

He risked not just a
heavy fine, though,

he risked a prison sentence.

Allen was overseas at the time,

never even came
back for the trial.

It was more of a novelty to him.

He realized that it was

an important even
in American history,

but he didn't realize the
serious trouble that Lawrence

could actually have gotten into.

- [Rexroth] Lawrence
Ferlinghetti,

bookstore proprietor, said
there were four-letter words

in the poems but it is easily
defendable as work of art.

It's a first breath of
fresh air in American poetry

in almost a generation.

This is the way official
San Francisco welcomes

this book of incomparable power.

(applause)

- 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

angel-headed hipsters

burning for the ancient,
heavenly connection

to the starry dynamo in
the machinery of night

who poverty and tatters
and hollow-eyed and high

sat up smoking in the
supernatural darkness

of cold-water flats
floating across the tops of

cities contemplating jazz.

- [Morgan] Judge Horn turned
out to be a very fair judge

and he ruled after the trial
that Howl was not obscene

because it had some
redeeming social value.

- [Lawrence] It's not the
poet but what he observes

which is revealed as obscene.

The sad waste of Howl,

of the sad waste of
the mechanized world,

lost among atom bombs
and insane nationalisms.

- Howl gave a legal president
that really important

for publishers who
were already active,

and also kind of was an
inspiration, I think,

because the Howl trial created
so much national publicity.

I think for younger people
it's difficult to imagine

the impact the three or
four page pictorial spread

in Life magazine
had in those days.

That was huge.

So, it was kind of important
in the sense that it

brought a lot of attention
to a really critical

point of principle,
freedom of speech.

- Lawrence Ferlinghetti
kicked open the door

to free up publishing

at a time when it
really needed to happen.

He risked a great deal
for a lot of books

that couldn't have been
published in this country.

Many books that are
now considered classics

can be freely read,
carried in your back pocket

and taught in almost every
university in the country.

- [Lawrence] This is
called Autobiography.

(fast jazz)

I am leading a quiet life

in Mike's Place every day

watching the champs

of the Dante Billiard Parlor

and the French pinball addicts.

And I have read somewhere

the Meaning of Existence

yet have forgotten
just exactly where

But I am the man

And I'll be there.

And I may cause the lips

of those who are asleep

to speak.

And I may make my notebooks

into sheaves of grass.

And I may write my own

eponymous epitaph

instructing the horsemen

to pass.

(uptempo jazz)

- When Lawrence was born in
1919, his father had just died.

And Clemence, his mother,
had a nervous breakdown.

And so she went to a mental
institution near New York.

- [Lawrence] Our Aunt Emily
was French and she took me

to France with her when
I was about a week old

and we lived near Strasborg.

I don't think we
came back to America

until I was about six.

I didn't even know I had
four brothers at that time.

- Of course he was convinced

that Emily was his true
mother and that he was French.

But after four
years, around 1923,

Emily decided to go
back to New York.

But, she hadn't enough money.

She wasn't feeding
Lawrence enough.

And soon the social
system took the child.

And Lawrence was just four
years old and ended up

in an orphanage in
Chappaqua near New York.

- The photo of Emily,

mad and elegant,

thinking herself a great writer

with something to
say to the world

in her shadow hat

having her picture taken

with the child
she always wanted.

She had lovers,

but no child.

She stood by the
bedside and took me.

- Emily found a job
as private teacher

at the Bislands, a very rich
family living in Bronxville,

near New York.

- I went along with her
and there was a butler.

There was a Swedish cook.

There was a chauffeur.

And there was a gardener,
an old Italian gardener,

who always smelled of
garlic and pepperoni.

And he lived in a
shack in the garden.

He was a hunchback.

It's right out of
Dickens. (laughs)

- After a year, Emily
during her free day,

just went out and
never came back.

- I was writing my French
aunt when I was 12 years old,

that's when I discovered
I could really write.

She was in France, I
was back in New York.

And, so That's how I,

the first writing I did was
to my French Aunt Emily.

She answered for a while

I mean, I remember
getting letters from her.

Then she really went crazy.

I don't know whether
she had insomnia or

amnesia or what.

She just disappeared.

Never heard from her again.

Nor did anyone else.

Emily Monsonto.

And saw her never again.

And never saw her again

except in the back
of old boutiques

peered into now again

with haunting glance
in the Rue De Seine.

The Bislands didn't
adopt me legally

but they had had a son named
Lawrence who died in infancy

and I came along
right after that.

Luckily, my name was Lawrence.

Anna Lawrence Bisland
was a daughter

of William van Duzer Lawrence

who founded Sarah
Lawrence College.

She married Presley Bisland

who was from
Natchez, Mississippi.

He always wanted to be a writer.

He really was of Mark
Twain's generation

and he was a very handsome man.

He was very witty.

The library was full of
Greek and Roman classics

also bound volumes of all
the great English novelists

like Thackeray and Dickens.

That's what I grew up
with was this library

and at the dinner table
I would recite the poems

that he gave me to learn

and he'd give me silver
dollars for learning the poems

like great old chestnuts, like

Horatius at the Bridge
and things like that.

Eventually, I ended up going
to Bronxville Public School.

Took me a couple off years
to become Eagle Scout

maybe when I was about 14.

Trouble was, the same
week I made Eagle Scout,

I got busted for
stealing pencils

from the five and
ten cent store.

Well, I was shipped
off to Mount Herman,

which was a working farm
school at that time.

Which I got sent
to in Massachusetts

to straighten me out after
I was a delinquent juvenile

on the streets of
Bronxville, New York.

My roommate there,
he had two books.

His Holy Bible was
one pocket, he had

The Sun Also Rises
by Ernest Hemingway.

In the other pocket he had

Thomas Wolfe's Look
Howeward, Angel.

So, I read Look Howeward Angel.

It happens in Pulpit
Hill, North Carolina.

Well, Pulpit Hill
is Chapel Hill.

So, I went to Chapel Hill
because Thomas Wolfe went there.

I worked on the
Carolina Magazine,

which Thomas Wolfe
had worked on.

And unfortunately, I wasn't
able to write like him.

My father died
before I was born,

dropped dead of a heart
attack when, I believe,

he was 42.

He came over probably
in steerage from Italy,

about the turn of the century.

His name was Carlo.

Carlo Ferlinghetti.

(uptempo jazz)

Driving a cardboard
automobile without a license

at the turn of the century,
my father ran into my mother

on a fun ride at Coney Island.

Having spied each other eating

in a French boarding
house nearby

and having decided
right there and then

that she was for him entirely

he followed her into the
play land of that evening

where the headlong meeting

of their ephemeral
flesh on wheels

hurdled them forever together

and I now in the back seat

of their eternity

reaching out to embrace them.

(chatter in Italian)

The Ferlinghetti family
had never told me

that had shortened
the name to Ferling

and just before I
published my first book

I restored the name
to Ferlinghetti.

(street chatter and
church bells ringing)

In a dream within a dream

I dreamt a dream

of all the animals dying out

All the animals
everywhere dying and dying

The wild animals, the
long haired animals,

winged animals,
feathered animals,

clawed and sealed
and furry animals

rutting and dying

and dying

in shrinking rain forests

in piney woods and high sierras

on shrinking prairies
and tumbleweed mesas

captured, beaten,
starved and stunned

cornered and traded

species not meant to be nomadic

wandering rootless as man.

Ferlinghetti, liberal poet
in search of his father.

(speaking Italian)

I was arrested
trying to see what

the inside of the
house looked like

where my father was
born in Brescia.

This paper, just one of the
national press stories about

my bust in Italy and
it included a copy

of my father's
birth certificate.

All my life, I've been looking
for my father's birth place,

looking for my father,
and when I find it,

I'm driven away by the
people who live there now.

See these ruins of a
while civilization there.

People ate and slept here.

They did everything else here,
in that ruin right there,

they had people

lying down together, eating
together, sleeping together.

Now, all gone.

Finito.

(knocking)

Let me in, I want to pray!

Let me in, I must pray.

Modern man must pray.

(speaking Italian)

(bells ringing)

El dio invisible.

It was very brilliant of
the Catholics to invent

a God that can't be seen.

So you can't prove he
exists or he doesn't exist,

cause you can't see him.

If you could see him, he
wouldn't be God anymore.

Well, when I was graduating
from Chapel Hill,

all the guys I knew

were volunteering for
the armed services.

It was the only socially
acceptable thing to do.

I had never heard of a
conscientious objector.

On the east coast, we
didn't have such things

as far as I knew.

After I signed up in
the Navy, I was sent to

midshipmen school in
Chicago in the fall.

When I graduated, I was an
ensign, and two days later,

I was standing out of New
York Harbor on my first ship,

which was J. P.
Morgan III's yacht

which he had leased to the Navy.

And the Navy gave it
a coat of gray paint

and commissioned him
as Skipper of the ship.

We had 50 pound
sticks of dynamite,

those were our depth charges.

We were supposed to light the
fuse and throw it overboard.

(laughs)

That's all we had
were depth charges.

And I was in D-Day, June 1944.

We were in an armada
of at least 1000 ships,

and we were the smallest
U.S. commissioned vessel.

USS Subchaser 1308.

It's a 110 foot wooden ship
with 30 men and three officers.

We were on the
anti-submarine screen.

We didn't land.

We could see all these
dough boys getting shot up

on the beaches.

But we were much safer
being in the Navy.

We had a camera on board,
and a little camera lab,

and we took a lot
of amateur pictures.

We didn't have
time to take many.

I was the skipper

and Gene Fineblatt was
the Executive Officer

and we were steaming in the
huge convoy all around us,

a forest of masts arising

from all the separate
ports in England

where they had departed

so we all came together
just as dawn was breaking

when the whole fleet
headed for the beach,

and started
debarking the troops.

(gentle music)

The sea is calm tonight

off Dover Beach

The birds at dusk

cry out syllables

of some deconstructed word

we are yet unable to decipher

to explain existence

And they lift the last
light with their wings

Keeping the secret.

At the time of the
liberation in Paris,

that fall, the fall of '44,
I got orders to go back

to the states and then cross
the Pacific toward Japan

and we were loaded
with 5000 troops.

We were supposed to
be an invasion force.

But, unknown to us...

(explosion)

We took a train to
Nagasaki one day

and it was totally open.

There was no guards or
anything keeping people out.

Of course this was
maybe six or seven weeks

after the bomb was dropped.

They'd cleaned up
the site somewhat.

And I walked around in this,
like, a three square mile

mulch of fused ruins, like
human flesh fused to a tea cup.

And bones and hair
sticking out of this mulch.

Every single building
flattened and pulverized.

And you realize a
while city, it just

disappeared.

Made me an instant pacifist.

No doubt about it.

Up to that night, I was
totally politically naïve.

I was a good American boy, Boy
Scout, never questioned it,

being in the military service.

Of course this is World War II,

which is called the Good War.

And, so there was
no discussion about

whether we should be in the war

or should we have
dropped the bomb.

Years later, after I became
more politically literate,

I came to the conclusion,

we never would have
dropped the bomb

if the Japanese
had had white skin.

It was monstrous, racist act.

(ship horn sounds)

After Nagasaki, we steamed
back to Portland, Oregon.

And so, I was mustered out there

and took at train
across to New York.

I ended up working in the
mail room at Time Magazine.

Cause I thought I could
work up to copy boy

and so up become a great
writer for Time Magazine,

Time Inc.

We were a scurvy crew down
there, mostly disgruntled G.I.s

and grunts from the
army and others intent

on fucking up the system.

After seven or eight
months, I get discouraged

and went to Columbia
university on the G.I. bill

and got an M.A. instead.

I still had in mind
getting back to France.

So, as soon as I got my M.A.,

I took off for
Paris, immediately.

So, I looked up George
Whitman when I got to Paris.

He was living in a
real dump of a hotel

on Boulevard Saint Michel,

in a tiny room with books
stacked up on the wall

on three sides and
George in the middle

in a broken down easy
chair, cooking his dinner

over a can of Sterno.

That's how it all began.

- This is the second
time that I have seen

Lawrence and George together.

And, both times have been
really moving because

there's a very strong
sense of familiarity

between the two of them

which I hardly ever see with Dad

because most of the people
around Dad are very young.

I think that's one of
the secrets why he's

stayed so young himself.

But to see him with
an old, old friend,

where there's this long history

and this very intimate,
shared passion for literature

that's been their life.

- Well, we were both
at Sorbonne together

at the same period I mean.

I got a little diploma
in French civilization

and he got very much
advanced degree,

a doctorate

and I heard him
defend his thesis

at the Sorbonne

on the image of the city and
the of poetry of T. S. Eliot.

Which was an
unforgettable experience.

- [Lawrence] The thesis
was on the subject of

"La Cite, Symbole dans
la poesie moderne"

I knew more about
American poetry I felt

than the professors on stage,

so I got away with murder
with what I said about

various American poets.

- Neither of us knew we
were gonna be booksellers.

All of us thought we
were going to write

the great American novel, of
course, like everyone else.

But, I ended up opening
this bookstore in 1951

in Paris.

And he opened his bookstore
in 1953 in San Francisco.

- The reason we have that
sign saying City Lights Books

above Shakespeare and Company,

and the reason Lawrence has
put Shakespeare and Company

above the doorway of
City Lights is because

there's the long history
of friendship between

two bohemian booksellers

that have made
literature their life.

Lawrence told me that the
original idea was that

George and Lawrence
would work one year

in their own bookshop
and then swap for a year.

But then they both got too
big and it wasn't possible.

(exotic horn music)

- And the Arabs ask
terrible questions.

And the Pope didn't
know what to say.

And the people ran around
in wooden shoes asking

which way was the
head of Midas facing

and everyone said
no instead of yes.

While still forever

in the Luxembourg gardens

in the fountains of the Medici

were there fat, red goldfish

and the fat white goldfish

and the children
running around the pool

pointing and piping

Les poisson rouge,
les poisson rouge.

They ran off and a
leaf unhooked itself

and fell upon the pool,

and lay like an
eye winking circles

and then the pool was very still

and there was a dog
just standing there

at the edge of the pool

looking down at the tranced fish

and not barking or waving
its funny tail or anything

so that, for a moment then,

in the late November dusk,

silence hung

like a lost idea

and a statue turned its head.

(exotic horn music)

That's perfect.

- [Offscreen] Yeah, very nice.

- [Lawrence] I finally
arrived in San Francisco

in January 1951

and my real political
education began

when I met Kenneth Rexroth.

He held Friday night
soirees at his house,

250 Scott Street in the
old Filmore district

and it was usually attended
by a dozen poets or so.

He had program on KPFA where
he reviewed many fields,

philosophy, geology,
astronomy, the classics.

- Last week I talked
about the anarchist.

You see, what is called
society in capital letters,

usually feels that it has a
certain cultural responsibility.

Now, this is one big factor
in the cultural night

which is long since
shut down over official

San Francsico,
well, that's that.

- [Lawrence] Rexroth
considered himself

a philosophical anarchist.

And listening to
KPFA in the 1950's

was a complete education.

From the dissident
point of view,

from the anarchist
point of view,

and when the war ended,

quite a few of the
conscientious objectors

came to San Francisco on
account of Kenneth Rexroth.

- Everybody talks about the
excitement of North Beach

and it certainly was
incredibly exciting.

(exciting jazz)

Every writer and
artist in the world

would come through somehow.

Lenny Bruce would wander in.

He'd just been arrested
three times that week.

But, it was also wild and
dangerous and crazy at times

and you get nuts coming
through and drunks

and there would be
fights, and you know,

it's the real world.

In the middle of
this whole crazy zoo,

Lawrence always exuded
a sense of calm,

he was always relaxed.

He always somehow
saw a larger picture.

And I think he's had that
impact on a lot of people,

and where it hit me,
is this guy coming in,

he was looking for Lawrence.

He didn't want to
leave town without

seeing Lawrence Ferlinghetti

to thank him.

And he said that he was
at the Gate of Horn,

it was a famous
place in Chicago.

They had one of these
all night poetry things.

Ferlinghetti was the headliner
and the reason people came.

Dylan was one of the
last poets to read,

and no one was paying attention,

everybody was drunk by now.

And the way he told
the story to me,

is Lawrence Ferlinghetti
stood up and said,

"You should be listening
to this guy's poetry.

"He's the best poet
to read tonight."

And the crowd quieted down
and they listened to him.

He said it just gave him
the confidence to be a poet

and that his words
mattered, and so forth.

- Next we have A Baseball Canto

by Lawrence Ferlinghetti,
a well known poet,

who lived in San Francisco.

He started the City
Lights Bookstore.

He was a brave man
and brave poet.

Watching baseball, sitting
in the sun, eating popcorn,

reading Ezra Pound and
wishing that Juan Marichal

would hit a hole right though
the Anglo-Saxon tradition

in the first canto

and demolish the
Barbarian invaders.

Well, why don't I let Lawrence
tell you the rest of it?

Lawrence Ferlinghetti,
Baseball Canto.

- When the San Francisco
Giants take the field,

and everybody stands up
for the national anthem

with all the players
struck dead in their places

and the white umpires
like Irish cops

and facing east as if
expecting some great white hope

or the founding fathers
to appear on the horizon

but Willie Mays appears instead

in the bottom of the
first and the roar goes up

as he clouts the first one
into the sun and takes off

and the ball is lost in the sun

and maidens wail after him

and he keeps running through
the Anglo-Saxon epic.

And Tito Fuentes comes up
looking like a bull fighter

in his tight pants and
small pointed shoes

and the right field
bleachers go mad.

Sweet Tito! Sock it
to him, Sweet Tito.

(lively guitar music)

- Hot day, and I was wearing
this very hot wool djellaba

from Morocco.

Someone at City Lights,
maybe it was me,

reported a fire on the premises

and in the middle
of this photo shoot,

whenever all the poets were
gathered in front of the store,

this big hook and ladder

steams up in front
of the bookstore

with the sirens screaming.

I didn't realize you
could be put in jail

for turning in a false alarm.

Back then, what did we know?

(guitar music)

Poets come out of your closets.

Open your windows,
open your doors.

You have been holed up too long

in your closed worlds.

No time now for
the artist to hide.

Above, beyond,
behind the scenes.

Indifferent, paring
his fingernails,

refining himself
out of existence.

No time now for our
little literary games,

no time no for our
paranoias and hypochondrias.

No time now for
fear and loathing.

Time now only for
light and love.

Don't call me a beat! I
never was a beat poet.

When I arrived in San Francisco,

I was still wearing
my French beret, 1950,

long before anyone had
heard of the beats,

and it wasn't until
City Lights published

Allen Ginsberg's
Howl in 1956, that

the Beats arrived.

- It's where all the guys
from New York came through,

from Ginsberg to Kerouac,

And with Berman came Rexroth,
David Meltzer, Ferlinghetti.

They all came down,
they did poetry to jazz.

And that influx started a
generation of artists here,

visual artists.

- News, the sort of
trickle-down news

of what was going on in San
Francisco in the early 50's

would be beginnings
of the beat movement.

This stuff found
its way down south

and did bring in an
enormous cultural wake.

- There was this
communication back and forth

between the poets and the
visual artists in Los Angeles

who also thought of
themselves as poets.

- [Meltzer] Painters
inspired poets,

and the poets inspired painters.

And that was a
beautiful exchange.

- Ferlinghetti and that whole
group were like interlocked

and inter-involved here, and I
don't think the art movement,

the visual art movement
in Los Angeles,

could have possibly
happened without

the San Francisco poets.

- The role of the artists,

I mean there's all
kinds of roles,

hot cross buns, there's

croissants.

Depends on whether you want
to be a real genteel artist

or you want to be a
hot cross bun artist

or you want to be a

delicate croissant artist.

There's all kinds
of art and artists.

I mean, if you like
mustard on your roll,

that's another kind.

I mean, I think most artists,
if they're playing a role

they should put
more mustard on it.

If you can't cut the
mustard, then you know,

you're not much of an artist.

Put on my

proper painting hat.

I had this in my
head all these years.

You see this?

This is the first
line from Ezra Pound's

First Canto.

And then went down to the ship,

Set keel to breakers,
forth on the godly seas,

and we set up mast and
sail on that swart ship,

Bore sheep aboard her,
and our bodies also

Heavy with weeping, and
winds from sternward

Bore us out onward
with bellying canvas.

We're trying to represent
reality so-called,

quote, unquote in painting.

We're supposed to paint reality,

but it's really just
another form of fiction.

The painter himself
in various disguises,

disguising himself in
various images on canvas,

just like in writing poems.

Nothing but masks.

I asked 100 painters and 100
poets how to paint sunlight

on the face of life.

Their answers were ambiguous,

whereas it seems to
me, all you have to do

is conceive of the whole
world and all humanity

as a kind of artwork.

An art project of
the god of light,

the whole earth and
all that's in it,

to be painted with light.

(zen music)

Did that butterfly
ask me a question?

Only the Buddha can
ask me a question.

I'm not a zen, and
I'm not a banana,

and I'm not a

bug. I'm not a bear.

I'm not tree, I'm not a flower.

I'm a two-legged creature,
lying on his back in the sun.

In the temple of the zen fool.

Jack Kerouac had to arrive
by taxi from San Francisco

at four in the morning
with his brakeman's lantern

and stumbled around in the
meadow trying to find the cabin

and finally flaked out in
the meadow spread eagle

where we found him
the next morning

in a full state of meditation

with tete de bois

with a tongue of wood,
totally hung over.

Essentially came down here
to recover from alcoholism.

But he didn't have a
change to do that cause

various beatniks kept showing up

like Neal Cassady and

Michael McClure and me.

Kerouac and I were
sitting on the beach,

and he out his little
spiral notebook

that he always carried.

He said, what did the sea say?

And I said, "Le possion
du mer parlent le Breton."

The fish of the
sea speak Breton.

And said, "What was
that? What was that?"

And I said, it's an
old Brittany proverb.

The fish of the
sea speak Breton.

And he wrote that
down in his notebook

and that's on the
last page of the book.

That's how the novel ends.

The Canticle of Jack Kerouac.

Far from the sea far from
the sea of Breton fishermen

the white clouds
scudding over Lowell

and the white birches
the bare white birches

along the blear night roads

flashing by in darkness

where once he rode

in Pop's old Plymouth

And the birch-white face

of a Merrimac madonna

shadowed in streetlight by
Merrimac's shroudy waters

a leaf blown upon sea wind

out of Brittany

over endless oceans.

- And I feel all in all
that Jack simply was not

a committed political
revolutionary.

- No certainly not,
I mean...(obscured
by others talking)

- ...thinking he was.

And I'm not for that
matter, are you?

- I certainly would
see this a a completely

different type of
writing from my writing.

- [Woman] Are you, Lawrence?

- I don't want to
sound pretentious.

- [Woman] That's not
the question. Just
a simple yes or no.

- Why, of course.

(applause)

I was tourist at revolutions.

I was good at being where
things happened in the 1960's

I was in Paris in '68.

I was in Mexico City in '68

when the students
were shot down.

I was in Cuba in 1959,
the second anniversary

of the Cuban Revolution.

And, 50th anniversary of the
Russian Revolution, 1968.

And in the 1970s,
I was a Sandinista.

And I went down to Nicaragua

to support the
Sandinista Revolution.

And new Americans are coming.

New North Americanos,

the ones who are
not like Reagan,

the ones who are
not like Abrams,

the ones who are not like North,

the ones who are not like Bush,

the ones are who are not
like the short-haired hyenas

of American business.

There are more Ryan
Wilsons coming.

There are millions
more like Ryan Wilson.

If only they awaken,
if only they awaken.

Nica, nica

the flame trees,

the framboyan are blooming

and phoenixes rise up

out of volcanoes.

(applause)

- Lawrence is basically,

an anarchoid, civil libertarian.

He's a man, let's
say of the left.

He lived through the
existential period.

That had big influence on
him, actually, big influence.

- I was coming in the 40's,
and I'm still coming from

a background of
French intellectual

and going back to Albert Camus,

you can not cooperate
with the state

because if you
collaborate in any way

you are guilty my complicity.

And I find that 9/10 or 95%

of the supposedly
dissident presses

and writers in the United States

in the last 20 years
have cooperated

with the United
States government,

by accepting grants from the
National Endowment of the Arts.

(applause)

I salute thee, national
pilot of our destinies

in Air Force One.

I salute thee, mass
murderer by complicity

while there is a strung out
soul in Santa Rita prison,

I am not free.

While there is a napalmed
class, I am of it.

I raise m y middle
finger to you,

smiling supporter of
benevolent, imperial nationalism

built upon political falses

which still rule Washington

and which you and
every other politician

and president,
including Kennedy,

were too political
not to inherit.

Don't call me on
your red telephone

war is good business,
invest your son.

- Ferlinghetti was always
the central caution

against government.

Never trust government,
never trust power,

question it.

So when people on the lest
would be more inclined

to sell out on some of the
stuff and look the other way

when we shouldn't have,

or what so-called
revolutionaries were doing,

Ferlinghetti never
romanticized people in power,

of anybody.

He was always suspicious of it.

- The state encroached
more and more worldwide

on the freedom on
the individual,

the position of the
poet as bearer of eros

and as such an anarchist
against the state by definition

into the middle
man in each of us,

the subjective in each of us,

which is so graphically
illustrated by

Chaplin and his "little man."

It's as if the state and
modern civilization in general

were out to destroy the
subjective in each of us.

Constantly risking
absurdity and death,

the poet like an acrobat
balancing on eyebeams

performing entrechats and
sleight-of-foot tricks.

And other high theatrics

and all without mistaking
anything for it may not be.

Then he a little
Charlie Chaplin man

spread eagle in the empty air

of existence.

- I think that one of the
things that's not understood

about Lawrence,

is Lawrence is probably the
most popular, modern poet

in the entire world.

The popular poets of today
would be Pablo Neruda,

Allen Ginsberg,
Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

And I strongly
suspect that Lawrence,

in terms of book sells,

is the most popular.

And one of the most powerul
things that he's done,

not for politics, but
for poetry itself,

is that he turned on two
generations of young people

to poetry

and they went on from his
work to reading others.

- He superseded E. E.
Cummings as a poet who

probably inspired more young
people of the generation

after 1955.

He's done more than
okay in that sense.

I mean, he's the
only poet, I think,

in the United
States with a book,

A Coney Island of
the Mind, I think

there are a million
copies in print.

That's almost inconceivable.

- The title of my book, A
Coney Island of the Mind,

is taken from Henry Miller's
book, Into the Night Life.

And it's used out of context,

but expresses the way I
felt about these poems

when I wrote them.

As if they taken all
together, were a kind of

Coney Island of the mind,
a circus of the soul.

Coney Island was first
published in 1958.

The first edition was on cheap
newsprint, not many copies.

Now it's in the
hundreds printing.

In the process,

it was busted in various
parts of the country,

once by the American Legion
in Woodstock, New York,

and my publisher, James
Laughlin, had to come up there

and assure the American
Legion that I, indeed,

was not a member of
the Communist party.

The poem that probably upset
the American Legion and

the Catholic Church the most
was a poem on the crucifixion

which as based on a rap by
Lord Buckley called The Nazz.

This was a poem in what was
called hip lingo in those days.

Sometime during eternity

some guys show up and one of
them who shows up real late

is a kind of carpenter

from a square-type
place called Galilee

and he starts wailing and
claiming that he is hip

to who made heaven and earth

and that the cat who really
laid on us is his Dad.

You're hot, they tell him and
they stretch him on a tree

to cool

And everybody after that

is always making
models of this tree

with him hung up

and always crooning his name

and calling him to come down
and sit in on their combo

as if he is the king
cat who's got to blow

or they can't quite make it.

Only he don't come
down from his tree.

Him just hang there
looking real petered out

and real cool.

- [Voiceover] Lawrence
Ferlinghetti is a painter

as well as a poet and publisher.

And he holds a doctorate
from the Sorbonne.

His book, A Coney
Island off the Mind,

was first published 1958 and
is now in it's 14th printing

by New Directions.

It is one of the most widely
read books of poetry today.

One of the poems
concerns this very dog,

whose name is Homer.

(barking)

- The dog trots
freely in the street

and sees reality

and the things he sees

are bigger than himself

and the things he sees

are his reality

Drunks in doorways

Fish on newsprint

Ants in holes

Chicken in Chinatown windows

their heads a block away

The dog trots
freely in the street

and the things he smells

smell something like himself

The dog trots
freely in the street

past puddles and babies

cats and cigars

poolrooms and policemen

He doesn't hate cops

He merely has no use for them

and he goes past them

and past the dead
cows hung up whole

in front of the San
Francisco Meat Market

He would rather eat a tender cow

than a tough policeman

though either might do

And he goes past the
Romeo Ravioli Factory

and past Coit's Tower

and past Congressman Doyle
of the Unamerican Commmittee

He's afraid of Coit's Tower

but he's not afraid
of Congressman Doyle

although what he hears
is very discouraging

very depressing

very absurd

to a sad young dog like himself

to a serious dog like himself

But he has his own
free world to live in

His own fleas to eat

He will not be muzzled

Congressman Doyle
is just another

fire hydrant to him

The dog trots freely
in the street.

(dog whines)

that's a good dog.

(barking)

- I went to a happening
with Lawrence in Paris.

It was arranged by
Jean-Jacques Lebel

who was a well-known
French beatik.

The happening included mice
being thrown at the audience.

Crabs being thrown
at the audience.

The door was locked so
people couldn't get out.

A band was playing.

A couple people were beating
on a VW, destroying it

with huge mallets.

And someone came out and
chopped off the heads

of some chickens

and it looked as if
they were dancing

to rock and toll music and
Lawrence was calmly reading

a long poem.

- Talk a little bit
about what happened

to the beat movement.

It sort of gave
way eventually to

the free speech movement,

which you were very much
a part of, Lawrence,

and then to hippies and
then to the New Left.

But, how did it sort of end.

- Well you can say all the
main shivements of the 1960s

counterculture were first
enunciated by the beats.

The early, the first
ecological consciousness

in writers such as Gary Snyder
and political points of view

all became mainstays of
the 60s counter culture.

- You think this is a liberated
society we live in today?

- You have like my
kids, they grew up,

they were already
liberated by the time they

have reached

20 years old.

Whereas in my generation,
it took us 20, 30 more years

to get to that point.

- The younger generation,
say 15, 24, high school kids,

realize that when
they get to be my age,

it'll be 2050.

What kind of world are they
going to have to live with?

Already the official
stereotype is quote

"diminished expectations"

which is a euphemism for
saying that the world is going

to be a horrible mess,
that the ozone layer holes

and the brimstone
in the atmosphere

is going to make
life unbearable,

that we're running out of water,

we're running out of arable
land, which is diminishing.

Species are being killed.

There's desertification and
deforestation everywhere.

And that hyper technology
has led us to an abyss

which may be like an Armageddon.

And everybody knows it
from old grandmothers

to young kids.

- The 60s stuff came out
of the beats more directly

than that of any
other influence.

City Lights Books
and Ferlinghetti

really were a very
important way station

between the beats
and the hippies

and the politics of the 60's,

I mean in a very critical way.

(hippie music)

- In 1967, the counter culture,
which was very powerful,

in San Francisco
and in California,

and growingly more
powerful about the country,

decided to celebrate itself
by having a Human Be-In,

in the which the super normal
tribes would come together

and listen to
music, perform arts

and communicate their
lifestyle with one another.

There was a big stage.

Hot bands of the times
played, The Grateful Dead,

Quicksilver Messenger Service.

On the stage was
Lawrence Ferlinghetti

and Timothy Leary, Gary
Snyder and Allen Ginsberg

and myself.

I read a poem and then
I sang another poem

using the autoharp that Bob
Dylan had given me earlier.

And, the people
celebrated themselves.

- At the Human Be-In,
in Golden Gate Park,

I was up on stage next to Allen
Ginsberg and Timothy Leary

and we're facing out to
about 10,000 turned-on people

and a parachutist
descending from the sky

and Allen turns to me and says,

"What if we're all wrong?"

Revolution of consciousness
happened in the 60s

with expansion of consciousness

but the political
revolution never happened.

It was aborted,

like after Kent State,
that was the end of it.

The state clamped down

and Marcuse said
it all back then.

He talked about the
enormous capacity

of the dominant
culture to ingest

its most dissident elements.

The left really has no
organs of communication now.

In the 20s and 30s,
and even in the 40s,

the left was powered
by the labor movement.

And the workforce of the
United States was maybe

60 or 70 percent unionized.

The labor movement
became ingested by

the dominant culture

so that the labor movement
as a motor to the left

doesn't exist anymore.

I did a painting recently called

"Arles n'existe plus,"
my Van Gogh series.

In other words, "Arles
doesn't exist anymore."

Where's Gauguin or Van Gogh?

Where are they gonna go today?

If Gauguin goes to Tahiti, he'll
have to stay in the Hilton.

Those grass shacks
aren't there anymore.

We used to think, oh,
there's always an island

still further out,

where we can still get away.

But, the island further out
has a Club Med on it now

at Moreo.

So that's what this
painting was all about.

There isn't any away anymore

and the dominant mode
of force behind this

is the American mono-culture.

We've talked about ecology
and ecological crisis,

but the problem of problems

is the overpopulation.

And that's the...

You can't solve any
of the other problems

until overpopulation
is controlled.

I get solicitations from
places like Greenpeace

or any ecological organization

and what I write back now,

I write on the face
of the application:

You should redirect your efforts
to over population control.

Cause that's below
everything else,

nothing else is solvable
without solving that.

Why are the rain
forest being cut down?

Population, et cetera.

- What'll be the role off the
American right wing in that?

They'll be trying to
keep the United States

from participating in it,

some kind of population
education and reduction.

- Right on abortion and
on birth control and...

I mean, I think the Pope
is in the middle ages.

I was just in Rome and I
was interviewed on this,

about this,

I mean the Pope is

being really

ignorant and sinful.

This is a sinful position
he has on population control

And so, I've got
the Breeding Blues.

(guitar music)

Sew, sew your seed

plant your seed

and who's to stop it?

Who's to say don't do it?

Who has the right to
say that it's a sin

that love is our
blight in the night?

It's a natural thing

the most natural thing

the most heavenly thing

the most blessed thing

so do it and sing.

(guitar music)

- One of the most
important things, I think,

is the way he
distinguishes between

political and lyrical poetry.

Very important in
understanding his work.

And this came up when
we were in Bigsby Canyon

and suddenly he
jumped up and said,

"I'm going to tell you why I
hate writing political poetry."

I said, wow, one of the
most famous political poets

in the world is going to tell us

why he hates writing poetry.

This is a scoop.

He told us in no
uncertain terms.

He's a lyric poet,
which is different.

Political poetry he says

really concentrates on
things that are passing.

They come, they go.

And next year it's another
political situation.

But he and many lyric
poets try to find

the timeliness and
timelessness in subjects

that have a longer
lasting quality.

And these are the
subjects of his poetry,

but the fascinating thing, you
find in most of his poetry,

that there's crucial political
ideas embedded in them.

Sometimes they seem to
want not to be heard

and sometimes they're
right on the surface,

yelling out at you
to understand it.

They're an expressive
element that represent

some of the most crucial
political ideas that he has.

And that's what you
find in many poems

by Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

(gong rings)

- Now we bring you this,

courtesy of Wheaties and
the American Boy Magazine,

Dissidents, Big Sur.

January bright sun

tiny hummingbirds in the willows

suddenly flittering up

as an ordinary American
monster 4-door sedan

barrels up the canyon road

back-firing and
farting carbon monoxide

and the hummingbirds take
flight in a flurry of fear

a cloud of them all
at once humming away

into deep blue air

where the skies sucks
up their winged hum

and in the infinite
distance, eats them

as a crowd of huge,
defiant, upstart crows

sets up a ravening
raucous, Caw! Caw! Caw!

And screams and circles overhead

and pickets the polluted air

as the metalled monster
power-drives on up the canyon

and over the horizon

and the crows now
too, wing away on wind

and are sucked up and disappear

into the omnivorous universe,

even as any civilization

ingests its own most
dissident elements.

(road hum)

It's right on the
tip of the peninsula.

That's where Lorenzo
grew up mostly

and Julie too.

Smile you're on camera.

Happy 45th Lorenzo birthday.

- Okay, I gotta make a wish.

It's gotta be a secret, though.

I can tell you one of them.

To live a long and healthy
life with my family.

Okay, 45 years young.

(blowing)

(speaking foreign phrases)

- [Lawrence] Where was this one?

- [Lorenzo] That was out
at the coast of Australia.

- [Lawrence] Oh, yeah.

- [Lorenzo] Here's another.

- [Lawrence] I didn't
know you had these.

- [Lawrence] Kept them.
Mom kept them. Yeah.

Here's one in Big Sur.

This is a classic one.

I was watching Dad first
thing in the morning,

as soon as the sun made it
over the top of the bluff,

he would stand there
chanting the sun mantra.

Sun, sun, sun.

And that's where he
thought of the symbol.

The early days on Potrero Hill

probably 1963, sitting
on the front steps

of 706 Wisconsin Street with
Dad and Julie, my sister.

Called the ghost house of
Potrero Hill when Dad bought it

and it was completely
dilapidated, no foundation,

holes in the roof, front
steps were falling down.

Had some great
memories in that house.

My room was the upstairs.

I had the best view of the city.

And you could see, as a
child, I remember watching

a whole skyline of
San Francisco go up.

(applause)

- I wanted to mention a
little about this Price Row

that is losing
it's name for mine.

I find out by talking to
the boys at Trigoni Hardware

who grew up here, during
prohibition, Price Row

was where the bootleggers
trucks backed up.

(laughing)

And also, it was the back
door of an undertaker's.

(laughing)

So, we had bootleggers
trucks and hearses.

It's a fitting place
for poets to hang out.

(laughing)

I was 30 before I saw San
Francisco for the first time.

And I've spent most
of the last 40 years

walking up and down the streets,

of little old
wooden North Beach.

I know the streets
and alleys around here

like the palm of my
hand, to coin a cliche.

And it's truly unbelievable
to have a tiny line

in that palm named after me.

(speaking Italian)

Grazi!

(cheering)

(dramatic music)

- Allen Ginsberg 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.

He is dying.

There is nothing to do about it.

He is dying the death
that everyone dies.

He is dying the
death of the poet.

A recent New Directions
book of mine is called

Poetry as Insurgent Art.

And it more or less sums up
what I've always considered

the role of the poet.

Poetry should be
dissident and subversive

and an agent for change.

It begins, I am signaling
you through the flames.

The north pole is not
where it used to be.

Manifest destiny is
no longer manifest.

What are poets for
in such an age?

What is the use of poetry?

Create works capable of
answering the challenge

of Apocalyptic times

even if this means
sounding Apocalyptic.

And the great spaces that
open out upon the sea

high tide and the herons call

and the people, the people, yes

all around the Earth,
speaking babel tongues.

You must decide if bird
cries are cries of ecstasy

or cries of despair.

Question everything
and everyone,

including Socrates who
questioned everything.

Strive to change the
world in such a way

that there's no further
need to be a dissident.

The idea of poetry as
an arm of class war

disturbs the sleep of those
who do not wish to be disturbed

in their pursuit of happiness.

The natural born, non-violent
enemy of the state.

It is the ultimate resistance.

It is the voice within
the voice of eternal.

It is the face behind
the face of the race.

It is the voice of the
fourth person singular.

Poetry, the last
lighthouse in rising seas.

(applause)

- He once said all I
want to do is write light

on the walls of life.

I think this applies to
all the media he works in.

He's such a great observer.

Of people,

of events.

Probably what he would
call little episodes

in the tragic
comedy of existence.

I guess I would call
him a romantic idealist

who accepts living
in an imperfect world

with humor and good grace.

- All these years,

while I've been pursuing
the art of writing

and the art of painting,

I've had this day job at
City Lights Bookstore.

And so, here we are, well
into the 21st Century.

In the upper windows of
City Lights right now

is my personal blog
in handwritten signs

such as turn left,

indict and jail Bush and Cheney

for crimes against humanity,

total gun control now,
abolish the death penalty,

universal single-payer
health plan for everyone,

rewrite the law on corporations,

the Middle East, Obama's
Vietnam, et cetera.

But what is really
needed these days,

is a national debate on
socialism and whether

America should adopt

some form of civil
libertarian socialism

instead of capitalism.

This is a historic
moment to do it.

However, the press has
made socialism a dirty word

and not a single
politician will utter it,

much less Obama.

And that's where we are today.

Still waiting for
Obama's nirvana.

Yes, the world is
the best place of all

for a lot of such things
as making the fun scene

and making the love scene

and making the sad scene
and singing love songs

and having inspirations

and walking around
looking at everything

and smelling flowers
and goosing statues

and even thinking,

and kissing people
and making babies

and wearing pants and
waving hats and dancing

and going swimming
in rivers on picnics

in the middle of the summer

and just generally living it up.

Yes, but then, right
in the middle of it,

comes a smiling mortician.

(applause)

- (speaking French)

(applause)

- C'est mon grand
plaisir de célébrer

ma liaison

avec le France

et la culture française.

(applause)

Well, I've been getting
a lot of awards lately

which would make you think
I've been ingested by

the dominant, industrial,
commercial society

but I haven't.

I may have been swallowed
but I haven't been ingested.

(laughs)

And I'm indigestible.

(upbeat music)

- His particular brand
off highly recent,

highly intelligent, but highly
witty political activism

he has carried that in
his life and in his poetry

effectively and lightly
through his whole life career

right up til now.

- Ferlinghetti and City
Lights is sort of the

guiding light of this city

and created the literary
atmosphere that everbody's

attracted to.

This is the best literary
environment in the world.

It's the most supportive.

It's the most engaged.

It's the best example
of writers being

involved in their community

and not necessarily
drawing a line

between art and politics

and thinking that, you know,

artists have a voice
and have a place.

This is all because
of City Lights.

- Ferlinghetti not only
has continued to write,

and there's this very
steady outpouring of verse,

but he has retained
his political edge

and it's gotten sharper
by being honed by

not just time, but
American politics.

It's admirable, I think,
that Ferlinghetti is still

speaking out and using poetry

as the ultimate
freedom of speech.

- [Lawrence] So now is
the time for you to speak

before they come for
you, oh silent majority.

(upbeat jazz)