A Far Rockaway of the Heart - Hardcover

Ferlinghetti, Lawrence

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0811213471 ISBN 13: 9780811213479

Publisher: New Directions, 1997

Synopsis

In his first original collection in a decade, a companion volume to his most famous book, A Coney Island of the Mind, the septuagenarian treats such themes as love, light, art, history, and the landscape of San Franscisco.

About this title

About the Author:

The poet, publisher, and activist Lawrence Ferlinghetti, born in Yonkers, New York in 1919, has received the Robert Frost Memorial Medal and the first Literarian Award of the National Book Foundation. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and is the subject of Christopher Felver’s film documentary, Ferlinghetti: A Rebirth of Wonder.

Review:

"Love's not time's fool," said Shakespeare in a sonnet, but in Ferlinghetti's colorful portrait of the world, love and time magically fool each other until the end--just one more reason why the Beat should go on. -- Peter Kyper, "Rain Taxi"

And Are We Not Then In The Real Paradiso Not In Dante's
And Every Poem And Every Picture
And Love Be Written On Running Water
And Pablo Neruda %that Chilean Omnivore Of Poetry
And Samuel Beckett's House Of Cards
At Ellis Island I Saw Her
At Night %a Dying Star
At The Golden Gate
A Blue-bottle Fly %alighted On My Palette
But What Is That Laughter Under The Hill
By Brooklyn Bridge %an Elephant Stands Under The Elevated
By The Statue Of Rodin
The Cat Doing Kundalini
A Cricket Somewhere %winds His Watch
The Dance Of The Mind
Day After Day Returning
Death Comes On %like A Beethoven Concerto
The Defeated Omanticism %of T.s. Eliot
Do Dreams Rescue Your Ego
The Dog Hangs His Snout
Driving A Cardboard Automobile Without A License{
Everything Changes And Nothing Changes
A Flight Through Time
Great River %image Of Time
The Green Street Mortuary Marching Band
He Made The Usual Fool Of Himself
History Is Made %of The Lies Of The Victors'
How Fragile The Flesh
How The Light %lay On The Leaves
I Heard A Woman Making Love Today
I Saw Great Neptune
I Saw One Of Them Sleeping
I Saw Two Lovers
I Would Not Make A Pact With You
I Wring The Neck Of The Swan
In Far-out Poetry %the Heart Bleeds Upon The Page
In Lock Of Love
In That Hinternation %that Stretches Westward From Manhatta
In The Beginning %wasn't The Word
In The Catalog Raisonne %of Hieronymus Bosch
In The Gardens Of The Alhambra
In The Hills Above Firenze %the Fireflies
In The Sala Di Pranzo
The Isles Of Greece
It's A Woman's World
The Italian-american Bimbo From Brooklyn
Kids Blowing Bubbles %in Front Of The Pizzeria
The Leaves Danced To Mozart %above The World's Static
Light Knows Rain %and How To Use It
A Lion Came To My Window
The Long Boats
The Lover Leaves The House Of Her Lover
The Lovers Under The Portico
A Mass In Progress In The Listing Church
The Mind Dances %when The Body Lets It
Narcissus Always Carried %a Small Hand Mirror
A Native-born New Yorker
Never A Madman %yet Never Far
O %heart %involuntary Muscle
O Fragile Poems %flowers Of Night-love
An Obscure Composer %she Was
Oh You Gatherer %of The Fine Ash Of Poetry
On The Stage Set %of The Piazza Della Rotunda
One Great Bird %flew Around Silently
'only Connect!' %cried Columbus
Oope, Pamplona! Cried The Pope
The Party Hoppers %wolfing Down The Wine And Cheese
Passed The Bouncer's Bar Tonight
The Plane Wings Away Toward Heaven
The Population Explodes %and The Sun Wears Shades
The Present Is A Chance Event
Pure White In First Light
Reaching Into The Great Abyss
Rear-guard Galleries %in The Via Margutta
Roma %made Of Flesh And Stone
Rome %rain %on The Tiber
Sewing Two Birds Together
Shadows Of Seabirds %skim The Waves
She Came In Out Of The Night
She Didn't Believe %in Ecstasy
So Much Depends Upon %the Very Yellow Taxicab
So Rent A Museum %and See Yourself In Mirrors
So Show Your Son A Sunset
So That %the God Whom Humans Had Decided
Somewhere On The Coast Of Greece
The Spanish Ants %in Their Trance-dance
Suddenly
Summer Passed Me By
They Were Shooting In The Plazas
Think Back Through The Long Years
The Tiny Little Ragged Mutt
Tonight At The Great Old Beach Hotel
Took The Seashore Road
The Vast Port Sways With Creaking Cordage
A Very Large Cat Ate A Singing Bird
Walking Through The University Of Bologna
When The Painter Pissarro Lay Dying
When The Senses Awake Before The Mind
Where Is That Little Fish
Whereas Einstein Was Not The James Joyce Of Scientists
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

I love Ferlinghetti for the breathless quality of his work, often writing a whole page of poetry with no punctuation, only the spacing and indentation of lines denoting the breaks. He takes the reader on a joyful, angry trip and all that's required of us is to go with him, whether into exhortations on the pretensions of art or mediations on the nature of poetry. Savor this gem on being a poet: "and now in the night/in the general confligration/the white light still consuming us/small clowns/with our little tapers/held to the flame. -- Kliatt, March 1999

It is evident from this sequel to Coney Island of the Mind (written forty years ago), that the world is ready for another Ferlinghetti burst. Ferlinghetti writes wonderingly of life. He seems to have retained the ability to look at even mundane people and events and find meaning. -- The Midwest Book Review

This collection of 101 numbered-that than titled-poems, written in what Ferlinghetti has termed a "poetry seizure" that lasted over a year, confirms that the author remains sharp, unrepentant, relevant, and fearless. His still-keen powers of observation guide us through the image-haunted century, from the sepia tintypes of his orphaned boyhood to the grainy footage of remote planets bounced back to us by the Hubble telescope. A Far Rockaway of The Heart also includes a nice bonus: 18 new poems from the latest City lights edition of Pictures Of The Gone World. All told, I seriously recommend it for Felinghettiphiles, Beat fans, and anyone seeking millennial closure from one who should know. -- Vice & Versa, October/November 1998

With ingratiating wit, Ferlingetti addresses the legacy of Pound, Eliot, Beckett, and others: his boyhood Latin teacher, busy with a "lovely housemaid," was one who resisted Prufrock's sea-girls "And off and on made faces at/ a copy of The Waste Land/ on a very high shelf." A fine if evanescent canzone shows the poet's serious, Poundian attention to matters of technique. Echoes visual and auricular resound from page to page, as Ferlinghetti at once deflates modernist pretensions and celebrates the achievement of his poetic mentors. Jazz players, chansonniers, painters, and sculptors come and go throughout these self-projecting pages. -- World Literature Today, Winter 1998

About this edition

• Publisher: New Directions
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0811213471
• ISBN 13: 9780811213479
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 124