A Far Rockaway of the Heart

by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

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.

Genres: Poetry

124 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

A prominent voice of the wide-open poetry movement that began in the 1950s, Lawrence Ferlinghetti has written poetry, translation, fiction, theater, art criticism, film narration, and essays. Often concerned with politics and social issues, Ferlinghetti’s poetry countered the literary elite's definition of art and the artist's role in the world. Though imbued with the commonplace, his poetry cannot be simply described as polemic or personal protest, for it stands on his craftsmanship, thematics, and grounding in tradition.

Ferlinghetti was born in Yonkers in 1919, son of Carlo Ferlinghetti who was from the province of Brescia and Clemence Albertine Mendes-Monsanto. Following his undergraduate years at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he served in the U.S. Navy in World War II as a ship's commander. He received a Master’s degree from Columbia University in 1947 and a Doctorate de l’Université de Paris (Sorbonne) in 1950. From 1951 to 1953, when he settled in San Francisco, he taught French in an adult education program, painted, and wrote art criticism. In 1953, with Peter D. Martin (son of Carlo Tresca) he founded City Lights Bookstore, the first all-paperbound bookshop in the country, and by 1955 he had launched the City Lights publishing house.

The bookstore has served for half a century as a meeting place for writers, artists, and intellectuals. City Lights Publishers began with the Pocket Poets Series, through which Ferlinghetti aimed to create an international, dissident ferment. His publication of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl & Other Poems in 1956 led to his arrest on obscenity charges, and the trial that followed drew national attention to the San Francisco Renaissance and Beat movement writers. (He was overwhelmingly supported by prestigious literary and academic figures, and was acquitted.) This landmark First Amendment case established a legal precedent for the publication of controversial work with redeeming social importance.

Ferlinghetti’s paintings have been shown at various galleries around the world, from the Butler Museum of American Painting to Il Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome. He has been associated with the international Fluxus movement through the Archivio Francesco Conz in Verona. He has toured Italy, giving poetry readings in Roma, Napoli, Bologna, Firenze, Milano, Verona, Brescia, Cagliari, Torino, Venezia, and Sicilia. He won the Premio Taormino in 1973, and since then has been awarded the Premio Camaiore, the Premio Flaiano, the Premio Cavour. among others. He is published in Italy by Oscar Mondadori, City Lights Italia, and Minimum Fax. He was instrumental in arranging extensive poetry tours in Italy produced by City Lights Italia in Firenze. He has translated from the italian Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Poemi Romani, which is published by City Lights Books. In San Francisco, his work can regularly be seen at the George Krevsky Gallery at 77 Geary Street.

Ferlinghetti’s A Coney Island of the Mind continues to be the most popular poetry book in the U.S. It has been translated into nine languages, and there are nearly 1,000,000 copies in print. The author of poetry, plays, fiction, art criticism, and essays, he has a dozen books currently in print in the U.S., and his work has been translated in many countries and in many languages. His most recent books are A Far Rockaway of the Heart (1997), How to Paint Sunlight (2001), and Americus Book I (2004) published by New Directions.

He has been the recipient of numerous prizes, including the Los Angeles Times’ Robert Kirsch Award, the BABRA Award for Lifetime Achievement, the National Book Critics Circle Ivan Sandrof Award for Contribution to American Arts and Letters, the American Civil Liberties Union’s Earl Warren Civil Liberties Award. Ferlinghetti was named San Francisco’s first poet laureate.

Reviews

[Mat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Late in life, Allen Ginsberg once lamented to himself in a poem, "Why can't I write another Howl?"
By the same token, I wonder if Lawrence Ferlinghetti ever thought, "Can I write another Coney Island of the Mind?"

Well, the muse certainly did answer him. Here, Ferlinghetti restores all the power and thunder of his early poetry with an absolutely stunning collection of poems. This is possibly the best book of beat poetry out there. Ferlinghetti talks about some of his early literary heroes like Ezra Pound (he wasn't such a fan of T. S. Eliot) while in other poems talks about everyday observations (which are just so spot on), some of the beat generation people (like Ginsberg and Corso) are mentioned and a few of the poems are also about painting for which Ferlinghetti is also well known.

I wish that someone had handed me this book in high school because it contains more wisdom than all of the textbooks I ever used over that 5-year period. I certainly could have learned more from this great man than from any other teacher at that age.

What a wonderful book this is. I'm sure I will return to this book again and again and again to revisit the marvellous words of insight contained within this small tome. If you love poetry, I can not recommend this highly enough. It's unbelievably good!

[Christina M Rau · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lawrence Ferlinghetti's A Coney Island Of The Mind made me become a serious poet. I've written poetry for as long as I could write, but I read that in college and I became a different kind of writer. I wrote with purpose, realizing that I could use words to be someone.

Now, over ten years after first reading that collection, I borrowed A Far Rockaway Of The Heart. I have no reasons for not reading it sooner. I've read a lot of Ferlinghetti's other stuff. I've seen it on the library shelf. Finally, now that I have the time to read more, I plucked it up, knowing that I could spend time reading and then rereading my favorites. I knew I'd have favorites.

Turns out, they are all my favorites. Ferlinghetti has a timelessness about his poetry that no other writer has been able to capture in the same way. He rails against inequalities and unfairness. He supports change for the better. But whereas many political poets find a voice for a particular cause, Ferlinghetti's cause is all causes, but still certain, not vague.

Far Rockaway came out in 1997. The rhythm of New York has not changed; the imagery is eternal with skyscrapers, suits, and subways. He revisits Neruda, Whitman, Mozart, Beethover, Eliot, DeKooning, Van Gogh, and Rodin. He explores California. He captures Europe. He bemoans America's material and financial crises. He questions religion. He frowns on war.

It is now 2009. The rythm of New York has not changed. America faces crises at home and abroad. As the first line of the first poem affirms, "Everything changes and nothing changes." That latter part includes my love for Ferlinghetti. I am forever thankful that he exists and writes and shares the human experience. I don't know what I'd be without him.

[Bonnie · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the pleasures I’ve rediscovered is reading a poem each morning. Many years ago when I took a Teachers as Scholars course in African American literature, I was given Norton’s Anthology of African American Literature. I remember a conversation I had with Judy Steinbergh, our Poet in Residence at Driscoll, regarding the idea of reading a poem a day. For some months I read a poem each morning before work as I ate my breakfast.

Some years later here I am once again returning to this lovely pattern. After our morning walk and swim, I usually shower, drink a lot of water, and sit down to a sumptuous fruit plate. This is a time for reading and writing. One of the books I’ve been reading is A Far Rockaway of the Heart. Jesse brought us this book when he visited in November.

My memories of Ferlinghetti date from my college days in the 1960s at Berkeley: North Beach, the Beat Movement, and City Lights Bookstore. I was surprised to learn that Ferlinghetti was still alive and well and writing! This slim volume was published in 1997; it’s the sequel to A Coney Island of the Mind (1947). These poems are brilliant; they merit being read one at a time and savored. This is my second slow, day by day, reading of this collection. There are poems about the world of nature, about poets, artists, cruelties and injustices of history, Ferlinghetti’s travels in Italy, Spain, and the U.S. Here are a few samples:

#2*
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 boardinghouse nearby
And having decided right there and then
That she was for him entirely
He followed her into
The playland of that evening
Where the headlong meeting
Of their ephemeral flesh on wheels
Hurtled them forever together

And I now in the back seat
Of their eternity
Reaching out to embrace them

#5
Where is that little fish
I caught and left on the line
still swimming in the still water
under that little bridge
by Bronx River Parkway
when I was a boy of nine
meaning to return?

Swept away!

And I with it

In flood of time


#74*
Sewing two birds together
Since neither had sung a deep song
In some time
Penelope thought the two white birds
Being birds of a feather
And sharing the same tongue
Might with one tongue create
Such a strange and beautiful melody
That Ulysses still at sea
Would hear it
And the wind of their song
Would carry him directly ashore
But the two birds
Needed more than one tongue
To rejuvenate their art
And to lure Ulysses
And the two tongue-tied birds
In her tapestry
Could only sound a tragic droning
Reminiscent of some tyrant
Talking though (sic?) a mask
So when despairing late at night
She unraveled her tapestry
And freed their tongues
The birds at once burst forth
In free speech
And the rare song carried across the sea
To the four round corners
Of the flat earth
And the great sound reached Ulysses
Who then came cruising in

#77
They were shooting in the plazas
They were shooting in the calles
of Andalusia
They were shooting on the playas
They were shooting by the river
Where there was none like you Manina
Manina with your longing look
Your long yellow tresses Manina
Smelling of milk and chestnuts
Among the fireflies Manina
Among the mulberry trees
Parrots shriek in the patio
The cypress trees tremble
where they came for you Manina
They heard you singing then
when they shot you down Manina
And your last loud lament
Fell into Flamenco

*In these poems the only lines that actually begin with caps are those on the margins.

[Andrea Samorini · Rating 3 out of 5]

Le mie preferite:


Newyorkese di New York
abitavo nel Lower Inside
un quartiere assai congeniale
ai tossicomani del soggettivo
(gruppo sovversivo sempre sotto inchiesta)
come anche ai buddhisti
e ai loro chakra inferiori
e ad altri in cerca di salvezze
da svariate realtà
virtuali o reali
E avendo perso il senso
del posti da cui provenivo
con l'amnesia dell'immigrante
percorsi in lungo e in largo
la faccia estroversa
dell'America
Ma non importa dove abbia vagato
fuori da ogni mappa
ancora mi piacerebbe ritrovare
quel posto perso
dove potrei salire un'altra volta
su un metrò domenicale per
chissà quale Far Rockaway del cuore

——————————————————
Il mondo è delle donne
al contrario di quello che dicono
E io non uno di questi
con il mio sciovinismo da maschio
esibito
una volta tanto a bella posta
Come si abbaiasse a un albero
sul quale un sirengatto
abbia cercato riparo
dal mondocane
sdraiato comodo lassù
nascosto nel fogliame
languido
enigmatico
dal pelo lungo e
flessuoso come una lince
E con la situazione assolutamente sotto controllo

——————————————————
Gli innamorati sotto il porticato
(prima pioggia primaverile)
Si tenevano per cuore
Come foglie verdi bagnate
l'una all'altra appiccicate
che nemmeno in tropicale calore
Si sarebbero staccate

___________________________________
FROM BOOK: A Coney Island of the Mind (Lawrence Ferlinghetti)

[Natalia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Still beautiful, but this is certainly not just more of "A Coney Island of the Mind". Ferlinghetti sounds older and a little less enamored of the world.

For the first half of the book, I kind of struggled. Poems about love are sometimes too personal to feel universal, and these were like that. And poems about artists... too meta-artistic. I wasn't feeling it. Finally, though there were a string of poems about Rome and travels elsewhere in Europe, and these had the wonder and humor I had been waiting for.

Ultimately, there are really only a handful of great poems in this book, but I've found that that's usually the case for me and books of poetry - I'm picky. The few I loved, though, they were everything I love about Ferlinghetti.

[Cherie · Rating 3 out of 5]

B+ I've always loved the title poem because it reminds me of my day. Delicious beat poetry. Great for reading in the bathtub, aloud to your love in between rounds of crunches, or on the subway to escape.

[The Literary Chick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful collection of gems, but I find the positioning of the words on the page distracting from the visions they create.

[Jen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a fan of Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Why am I giving him 3 stars for this book then? Because I'm a fan that likes him even when he's not at his best--while still recognizing that he's not at his best. This book is accessible while not being simple, which is a plus. However, I think it would have been a better book if it were trimmed to only the best poems. When I thought about this, though, I suspected that it would be hard to get people to agree on which ones should go. So we get unexpurgated Ferlinghetti, which might not be as powerful as distilled Ferlinghetti, but is still an enjoyable mixed bag.

In this book he does a lot of dropping of names and lines of other poets, so allusions may be lost on those not steeped in the broader poetry history. He has poems about the visual arts scene. He has poems about time in Italy. He has very short poems and a couple that are a bit longer, but most are a page or less in length. His lines wander about the page. Sometimes he rhymes and sometimes he doesn't. Most often his view of current times is cynical but sometimes it's not (I prefer him foolishly optimistic). His word choices are often cheeky and he throws in humor wherever he likes. There's an off-the-cuff, improvisational feel to most of his poetry.

Although this book doesn't have defined sections, poems are definitely grouped by theme if you read it from cover to cover. However, there's no reason to read it that way. This would be a good book for someone who likes to just dip into a book of poetry and mull a poem a day. Unfortunately, the poems are only numbered not titled, but the publisher does provide a list of first lines at the back of the book.

[Drew · Rating 4 out of 5]

For some reason, coming back to this collection, I was struck by the rare slip-ups -- "rapsodically" instead of "rhapsodically"; "an needle" instead of "a needle" -- not with irritation but with understanding. Because at his best, Ferlinghetti relates the feeling of an instant; the intense but fleeting epiphany we may experience as we move through our day-to-day. That dashed-off quality isn't a problem here. It's a strength, an asset, a power. Yet while this book's title references NYC (as well as his signature work "A Coney Island of the Mind" from 40 years earlier), some of these newer verses are products of tourism. To Italy, specifically. As such, they don't seem to convey the immediacy of life experienced so much as postcard thoughts of a life observed. On holiday. With a Bic pen in one hand, and a Baedeker guidebook in the other. Such critiques aside, Ferlinghetti has lost none of his verve, his pleasure in rhyme, his musically staggered structuralism, his Beat sensibility. So here's to keening and Pasolini and politics here and abroad. ["...an angel's multilingual voice / comes over the headphones / sensual as Sappho / (ah why is the erotic/so despotic?)"]

[Jan Landers · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've been on a real poetry kick lately, and I thought I should revisit Ferlinghetti, whom I was only familiar with through his most notable, first two books ("Pictures from the Gone World" and "Coney Island of the Mind"), so I thought it only natural to pick up and consider its spiritual sequel.

What a letdown!

I picked this up with another volume of his poetry from the same time period, and the suspicion I have is that he ran out of gas half-way to his yoga class. The juice is very dried up here, with the language sputtering inelegantly, dumbly, and it registers with a kind of self-parody you'd expect from someone who actively hated the Beats and thought they were all aging hipsters.

Sorry, Lawrence, but this isn't doing anybody any favors, despite how important and monumental your early achievements were.

Please continue reading the first two works, however, as they are still vibrant, funny and full of pathos.

[Ville Verkkapuro · Rating 5 out of 5]

I saw the image of Ferlinghetti in a paper, like an oasis from years ago, from a life ahead of me.
Ferlinghetti, in front of his bookstore, dead by 101 .
His smile, the ease, the warmth.
The more I read about him the more I loved him.
And so I took an electronic device from my pocket, the one with all the information in the world, and reserved this book.
It then traveled to my library, Kallion kirjasto, built in 1889, same year Chaplin was born, and Hitler, doesn't matter.
The book got picked up by me, the covers were opened and Ferlinghetti became one with me, more so than when he ever lived. The words on the pages didn't speak to me, they spoke to my soul, and as my soul is not my body I watched myself from a far, reading these poems out loud to my loved one, embedded in time.
These poems, the tattoos of life, and nothing else.

[Everett · Rating 4 out of 5]

#18

Narcissus always carried
a small hand mirror
just in case there was no water
to see the self in
like most of the rest of humanity
carrying their little vanities

And the child
for the first time seeing
a shell of the self
(and shocked by the sight of it)
Spends the rest of life enslaved
to this so-true-and-false
mirror image
and only now and then seeing
over a shoulder
the world beyond the mirror
and never reflecting
that life itself
be only a samsara illusion
in the hand-held mirror of
some Higher Narcissus
leaning over our
little quivering pool
In which might still be reflected
a totally Ideal Being

[Jonathan Holleb · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is about on equal level with A Coney Island of the Mind...Essential Ferlinghetti poetry...If you like Ferlinghetti, you need this book! Much like Coney Island, there are many poems you will want to come back to again and again...The themes of Far Rockaway are almost more amusing in their organization than Coney Island was, and there are many more of them. Ferlinghetti's poetry is a national treasure, and this some of the best.

[Harrison Jack · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘A Coney Island of the Mind’ altered how I approach poetry aesthetically and I feel as though this has altered my approach spiritually.
It’s obvious 40 years had passed between the writing of those two collections, this one expresses itself with a much more mature voice.

[R.K. Cowles · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 1/2 stars

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a fan but the quality goes from the sublime to the piss poor here. Probably not worth revisiting.

[Rue Solomon · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

And drives off in a dense cloud
of unknowing
into a dubious immortality
having sown the iron seeds
of Autogeddon

[Andrea Tittarelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Forse non è uno dei più famosi rappresentanti della Beat Generation; ma è sicuramente il più longevo, essendo morto nel 2021 dopo aver superato i 101 anni di età; e questa raccolta poetica, pubblicata verso la fine del secolo scorso, è costituita proprio da 101 liriche. Un libro di poesia risulta sempre difficile da commentare; potrei dire piuttosto banalmente che nel complesso mi è piaciuto; che Ferlinghetti è originale, dissacrante, provocatorio; che nei testi compaiono diversi personaggi famosi (pittori, scrittori, politici) e altri personaggi anonimi, bizzarri, a volte divertenti; che rende sicuramente di più letto in inglese che non in traduzione.

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just read this for the second time, and it's still great. I think the first time was in grad school, way too many years ago, when I had a class on the Beat Poets.

Ferlinghetti was one of the more senior of the beats, almost a father figure to many of them, the guy who published most of their stuff and gave them a place to hang out, party, and read their poetry (City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco, which still exists and is worth a visit).

The poems are short, there's maybe one that's three pages and the rest are one or two. One is eight words. I like Ferlinghetti's brevity, he can say a lot about life, the universe, and everything just by mentioning fireflies (which he does a couple of times). It's great stuff.

This is a later book, and while the title makes it seem like a sequel to "A Coney Island of the Mind" it comes so long after that I'd argue it's not.

Ferlinghetti writes so well about cities, he's an urban poet for sure, giving insights into New York, San Francisco, and Rome almost without even trying. He just describes a few things, and you almost "get" that city from his few perfect phrases. It's pretty impressive.

He also writes about the arts in a way that reminds you how few people still have a passion for paintings, poems, and the Arts with a capital A. He lived and breathed literature and art, and it shows.

When he says every poem is "a raid on the inarticulate" you get where he's coming from and how much that used to matter to a lot of people (always a minority, I'm sure, but a much smaller one now than in his heyday).

Some good stuff worth pondering:

from #64:
And her lips / almost at their ears / in which they hear only / the very distant roaring / of their own futures

from #68:
There are still fireflies / on earth at night / And the world / not about to end / in a dearth of light

All of #98:
Suddenly / in the long door of night / Fireflies

(I really like those fireflies.)

The edition I have includes a few preview poems from "Pictures of the Gone World," a later book of poems with another fantastic Ferlinghetti title. Yes, every poem is a picture from a world that's gone...

Here's a good one:
From #34:

Surfers are poets too ... / They too are looking / for the perfect wave / with the perfect rhythm sublime ... / They too are looking for the endless light / at the end of the tube of time

It's good stuff. Read it if you get a chance.

It's not as angry as some of his work, not as nostalgic either, but just right for a quick look at the kind of folks who found a new way to look at themselves and their cities in the 1950s, some of whom, like Ferlinghetti, kept on doing it into the 2000s.

[Rob Lloyd · Rating 5 out of 5]

As much as I enjoyed A Coney Island of the Mind, this trumped it for me. Such beautiful poems, all 101 of them. The way they dance down the page and how they flow so effortlessly from one another amazes me.

[kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

The wait was worth it for Ferlinghetti's follow-up to Coney Island. One of my favorite poetry books - masterful writing.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

the sequel to 'a coney island of the mind' released decades later. a similar tone, running the range of poetry from serious to funny, engaged to intimate. get it..

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

my favorite book of poems

[Sivan · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite book of poems.

[Jay Woodman · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the outstanding poets for me.

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is some of the best poetry I've ever read.

[Bill Melville]

A worthy followup to the classic A Coney Island of the Mind. Ferlinghetti is the one Beat-associated poet I always return to.