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Writing across the Landscape: Travel Journals 1960-2010
Over the course of an adventured-filled life, now in its tenth decade, Lawrence Ferlinghetti has been many things: a poet, painter, pacifist, publisher, courageous defender of free speech, and owner of San Francisco’s legendary City Lights bookstore. Now the man whose A Coney Island of the Mind became a generational classic reveals yet another facet of his manifold talents, presenting here his travel journals, spanning over sixty years. Selected from a vast trove of mostly unpublished, handwritten notebooks, and edited by Giada Diano and Matthew Gleeson, Writing Across the Landscape becomes a transformative work of social, cultural, and literary history.
Beginning with Ferlinghetti's account of serving as a commanding officer on a Navy sub-chaser during D-Day, Writing Across the Landscape dramatically traverses the latter half of the twentieth century. For those only familiar with his poetry, these pages present a Lawrence Ferlinghetti never before encountered, an elegant prose stylist and tireless political activist who was warning against the pernicious sins of our ever-expansive corporate culture long before such thoughts ever seeped into mainstream consciousness.
Yet first and foremost we see an inquisitive wanderer whose firsthand accounts of people and places are filled with pungent descriptions that animate the landscapes and cultures he encounters. Evoking each journey with a mixture of travelogue and poetry as well as his own hand-drawn sketches, Ferlinghetti adopts the role of an American bard, providing panoramic views of the Cuban Revolution in Havana, 1960, and a trip through Haiti, where voodoo and Catholicism clash in cathedrals "filled with ulcerous children's feet running from Baron Hunger." Reminding us that poverty is not only to be found abroad, Ferlinghetti narrates a Steinbeck-like trip through California's Salton Sea, a sad yet exquisitely melodic odyssey from motel to motel, experiencing the life "between cocktails, between filling stations, between buses, trains, towns, restaurants, movies, highways leading over horizons to another Rest Stop…Sad hope of all their journeys to Nowhere and back in dark Eternity."
Particularly memorable is his journey across the Trans-Siberian Railway in 1957, which turns into a Kafkaesque nightmare in which he, lacking a proper visa, is removed from a Japan-bound freighter and forced back across the Russian steppe to Moscow, encountering a countryside more Tolstoy than Khrushchev, while nearly dying in the process. Readers are also treated to glimpses of Ezra Pound, "looking like an old Chinese sage," whom Ferlinghetti espies in Italy, as well as fellow Beat legends Allen Ginsberg and a dyspeptic William S. Burroughs, immured with his cats in a grotto-like apartment in London.
Embedded with facsimile manuscript pages and an array of poems, many never before published, Writing Across the Landscape revives an era when political activism coursed through the land and refashions Lawrence Ferlinghetti, not only as a seminal poet but as an historic and singular American voice.
Beginning with Ferlinghetti's account of serving as a commanding officer on a Navy sub-chaser during D-Day, Writing Across the Landscape dramatically traverses the latter half of the twentieth century. For those only familiar with his poetry, these pages present a Lawrence Ferlinghetti never before encountered, an elegant prose stylist and tireless political activist who was warning against the pernicious sins of our ever-expansive corporate culture long before such thoughts ever seeped into mainstream consciousness.
Yet first and foremost we see an inquisitive wanderer whose firsthand accounts of people and places are filled with pungent descriptions that animate the landscapes and cultures he encounters. Evoking each journey with a mixture of travelogue and poetry as well as his own hand-drawn sketches, Ferlinghetti adopts the role of an American bard, providing panoramic views of the Cuban Revolution in Havana, 1960, and a trip through Haiti, where voodoo and Catholicism clash in cathedrals "filled with ulcerous children's feet running from Baron Hunger." Reminding us that poverty is not only to be found abroad, Ferlinghetti narrates a Steinbeck-like trip through California's Salton Sea, a sad yet exquisitely melodic odyssey from motel to motel, experiencing the life "between cocktails, between filling stations, between buses, trains, towns, restaurants, movies, highways leading over horizons to another Rest Stop…Sad hope of all their journeys to Nowhere and back in dark Eternity."
Particularly memorable is his journey across the Trans-Siberian Railway in 1957, which turns into a Kafkaesque nightmare in which he, lacking a proper visa, is removed from a Japan-bound freighter and forced back across the Russian steppe to Moscow, encountering a countryside more Tolstoy than Khrushchev, while nearly dying in the process. Readers are also treated to glimpses of Ezra Pound, "looking like an old Chinese sage," whom Ferlinghetti espies in Italy, as well as fellow Beat legends Allen Ginsberg and a dyspeptic William S. Burroughs, immured with his cats in a grotto-like apartment in London.
Embedded with facsimile manuscript pages and an array of poems, many never before published, Writing Across the Landscape revives an era when political activism coursed through the land and refashions Lawrence Ferlinghetti, not only as a seminal poet but as an historic and singular American voice.
496 pages, Hardcover
First published September 1, 2015
29 people are currently reading
300 people want to read
About the author
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
258 books648 followersA 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
June 28, 2025
There is nothing like a travel journal written by a poet, and especially if the poet is one I have liked and respected for over half a century. I first met Lawrence Ferlinghetti at a poetry reading at Dartmouth College in 1963. He was asked a bunch of wise-ass questions by fellow English majors who wanted to score points off him -- but it was they who were scored upon by the unflappable Ferlinghetti.
Writing across the Landscape: Travel Journals 1960-2010 shows that Ferlinghetti took a lot of short trips to places like Mexico, Belize, England, France, Germany, Italy, Morocco, Spain, Portugal, and Russia. It was always interesting to see him trying to make sense of places and people, as if he were writing draft notes for poems.
It makes me want to read some of his poetry collections.
RE-READ NOTES: Good for a second reading, too.
Writing across the Landscape: Travel Journals 1960-2010 shows that Ferlinghetti took a lot of short trips to places like Mexico, Belize, England, France, Germany, Italy, Morocco, Spain, Portugal, and Russia. It was always interesting to see him trying to make sense of places and people, as if he were writing draft notes for poems.
It makes me want to read some of his poetry collections.
RE-READ NOTES: Good for a second reading, too.
July 1, 2015
Advanced Reading Copy review Due to be published in October 2015
Lawrence Ferlinghetti is best known as the founder of City Lights bookstore and publishing house. He is also an accomplished poet and writer who hung out with the Beats without actually joining the club. He became a cause célèbre when he was jailed for publishing Allen Ginsberg's "Howl". His traveling journals have been collected in "Writing Across the Landscape" and, for the most part, they bring the man and his times to life.
Highlights include his travels on the Trans-Siberian railroad, his tour of Nicaragua during the Sandinista revolution and his many trips to Mexico. The journal entries for these periods illuminate what is happening, why he is there and are written in Ferlinghetti's unique style. Thanks to my own travels and reading, many of the art history, literary jokes and geographical references did not sail over my head, though I missed a few. If the book had been limited to these passages, this would have been a four star review.
The collection goes off track when fragments become chapters. Since his travel journals were sometimes sporadic and large gaps appear between entries the reader is often left adrift. Where is he? Why is he there? Does this one paragraph chapter advance a narrative or give us any new insight or at least a memorable bon mot? Sadly, no. Some editorial guidance would have been appreciated.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti is best known as the founder of City Lights bookstore and publishing house. He is also an accomplished poet and writer who hung out with the Beats without actually joining the club. He became a cause célèbre when he was jailed for publishing Allen Ginsberg's "Howl". His traveling journals have been collected in "Writing Across the Landscape" and, for the most part, they bring the man and his times to life.
Highlights include his travels on the Trans-Siberian railroad, his tour of Nicaragua during the Sandinista revolution and his many trips to Mexico. The journal entries for these periods illuminate what is happening, why he is there and are written in Ferlinghetti's unique style. Thanks to my own travels and reading, many of the art history, literary jokes and geographical references did not sail over my head, though I missed a few. If the book had been limited to these passages, this would have been a four star review.
The collection goes off track when fragments become chapters. Since his travel journals were sometimes sporadic and large gaps appear between entries the reader is often left adrift. Where is he? Why is he there? Does this one paragraph chapter advance a narrative or give us any new insight or at least a memorable bon mot? Sadly, no. Some editorial guidance would have been appreciated.
August 30, 2015
I received a copy of this from the publisher in exchange for an honest review
This book is for fans of City Lights, the Beat generation, and of Lawrence Ferlinghetti. I'm not sure people who don't know about that group and their cultural significance should start here.
I did enjoy reading Ferlinghetti's journals. It is clear that being a bookseller and a poet opened up travel avenues for him in ways that would not have been available to every American - places of revolution like Cuba, Spain, and Nicaragua. His linguistic ability forged relationships throughout Latin America and Europe, which in turn led to many publications through City Lights including translations that he did himself!
Communism, anarchy, revolution. Ferlinghetti drifts through these groups and ideas without really committing to any of them, he leaves that for his slightly younger peers, most of whom died before he did (after all, he's still alive!)
It was interesting to see the world stage through a travel journal outside of America and in very specific American cities. His writing is sometimes fragmentary, sometimes poetic, sometimes using creative license (or perhaps drug induced writing, from what it seemed like.) Some is mundane, some is beautiful, his moods come through. Most of the journal is that of a solitary man, but this is because most of the time his wife and son are not traveling with him. It made me curious about him in his normal, domestic life.
This book is for fans of City Lights, the Beat generation, and of Lawrence Ferlinghetti. I'm not sure people who don't know about that group and their cultural significance should start here.
I did enjoy reading Ferlinghetti's journals. It is clear that being a bookseller and a poet opened up travel avenues for him in ways that would not have been available to every American - places of revolution like Cuba, Spain, and Nicaragua. His linguistic ability forged relationships throughout Latin America and Europe, which in turn led to many publications through City Lights including translations that he did himself!
Communism, anarchy, revolution. Ferlinghetti drifts through these groups and ideas without really committing to any of them, he leaves that for his slightly younger peers, most of whom died before he did (after all, he's still alive!)
It was interesting to see the world stage through a travel journal outside of America and in very specific American cities. His writing is sometimes fragmentary, sometimes poetic, sometimes using creative license (or perhaps drug induced writing, from what it seemed like.) Some is mundane, some is beautiful, his moods come through. Most of the journal is that of a solitary man, but this is because most of the time his wife and son are not traveling with him. It made me curious about him in his normal, domestic life.
November 7, 2015
These journals were not really meant for publication and therefore contain a lot of material that I would consider to be dreamlike fragments and observations that were intended to be the basis for his poetry (a lot of Heironymus Bosch/Dante imagery). While much of it painted a nice word-picture, it got a little tedious when it went on for page after page. The longest of these passages took place on trips to Mexico (gee I wonder why?). It's a good thing I read Malcolm Lowery not too long ago otherwise a lot of this stuff would have made absolutely no sense.
The best parts were the more straightforward descriptions of his travels to places like Cuba, Germany, Russia, Franco's Spain and Nicaragua after the Sandinistas took over. The tone of the entries, beginning in 1960 to almost the present day, seem to get a little more pessimistic beginning in the late 1990s despite the fact that the author considers himself to be an optimist. This is mainly due to what he describes as a relentless "corporate monoculture" obliterating all indigenous peoples in its path (and he didn't just mean in San Francisco which has been obliterated by the "Tech Boom").
As a travel memoir, it's nowhere near as entertaining as Langston Hughes' "I Wonder as I Wander," (which contains many similar themes) but that was a work intended to be read by the public. I can see this being interesting for someone working on a thesis on Ferlinghetti's poetry and its influences.
The best parts were the more straightforward descriptions of his travels to places like Cuba, Germany, Russia, Franco's Spain and Nicaragua after the Sandinistas took over. The tone of the entries, beginning in 1960 to almost the present day, seem to get a little more pessimistic beginning in the late 1990s despite the fact that the author considers himself to be an optimist. This is mainly due to what he describes as a relentless "corporate monoculture" obliterating all indigenous peoples in its path (and he didn't just mean in San Francisco which has been obliterated by the "Tech Boom").
As a travel memoir, it's nowhere near as entertaining as Langston Hughes' "I Wonder as I Wander," (which contains many similar themes) but that was a work intended to be read by the public. I can see this being interesting for someone working on a thesis on Ferlinghetti's poetry and its influences.
April 23, 2017
Lawrence Ferlenghetti has always been one of my favorite poets and I consider him a visionary and his travelogue shows just how much of a true visionary he is. He quotes Henry Miller early on saying: "Some other breed of man has won out." And goes on to say, in his own words: some strange breed has taken over America. That explains his extensive travels to such places as Franco ' s Spain, Nicaragua after the Sandinista takeover, many trips to Italy, France and Mexico, Cuba right after the Castro revolution, Morroco and his hilarious description of a trip on the Trans-Siberian in the USSR.
His Dadaist form of automatic writing can be confusing to some, but since I know his style I truly enjoyed his wild and crazy "rants", some of it laugh out loud funny and at times poetically magical. His insights on mankind are deep and touching. He shows that he has not lost his gift of writing even a this late age.
He makes me want to keep on traveling, experiencing life, thinking and reading, not a small endeavor. As he says in the book, it is better to travel as a "tabula rasa" and just take in the culture, without any preconceived ideas, and that is how I recommend those who have not yet read this book: delve right into it and enjoy the ride!
After all, we are all "Groucho Marxists"!
His Dadaist form of automatic writing can be confusing to some, but since I know his style I truly enjoyed his wild and crazy "rants", some of it laugh out loud funny and at times poetically magical. His insights on mankind are deep and touching. He shows that he has not lost his gift of writing even a this late age.
He makes me want to keep on traveling, experiencing life, thinking and reading, not a small endeavor. As he says in the book, it is better to travel as a "tabula rasa" and just take in the culture, without any preconceived ideas, and that is how I recommend those who have not yet read this book: delve right into it and enjoy the ride!
After all, we are all "Groucho Marxists"!
October 1, 2015
This isn't a collection of stories from Ferlinghetti's life. You won't walk away feeling that you've got insight into his beliefs and motivations, of who he is as a person. This book is a graduate level class on how a world class poet takes all the raw input from the world and processes it, throws out his net and collects it, and pounds on it until it becomes poetry. This book turns a strobe light on Ferlinghetti's travels so you see images and events briefly, caught in a too bright light, hyperfocused, and then they're gone without explanation.
This book lets you see the creaky wheels and the gears of how poetry is made, by this one excellent poet on one pass through time. I'm sure the experience if duplicated with another writer would have completely different results. I'm sure if Ferlinghetti gets another pass through time, the results will be completely different the second time.
I enjoyed it immensely but your mileage will vary.
This book lets you see the creaky wheels and the gears of how poetry is made, by this one excellent poet on one pass through time. I'm sure the experience if duplicated with another writer would have completely different results. I'm sure if Ferlinghetti gets another pass through time, the results will be completely different the second time.
I enjoyed it immensely but your mileage will vary.
January 25, 2019
I found this book at a library book sale-it reads like a travel journal with sketches and side notes its a great adventure to read.Well known 1960`s poet and writer Ferlinghetti ,I did not know much about him though i have a big collection of Jack Kerouac books . We have been having frigid weather here- so with blanket and hot coffee i have been traveling with him- one of a kind writer -
August 6, 2016
Person I'd like most to sit at a cafe table and converse with over drinks....for hours....and hours; sometimes silent, somewhat jaded, always suave.
October 29, 2022
Such a beautiful writing. Definitely not for one seat reading, but it's been lovely to pick up in between books or when needed change of scenery.
October 3, 2015
A One of the best books I've read in a while. The amazing travel journals of Ferlinghetti. You get a taste of his life as a wanderer, a bookseller, an activist, a revolutionary, a poet. He writes in English, with the occasional splash of Spanish, Italian, and French. His journals remind me of my own (but more interesting), with lots of self-reflection, occasional dream scene (amazing), and some great poems. I def want to reread this, perhaps on a trip.
October 2, 2015
A great disappointment. Fifty years of drivel and political naiveté from a mediocre talent and anti-Catholic bigot. To be respected as founder of City Lights, I suppose, but, really, a sad and foolish man, less “beat” and more beatnik “revolutionary”/anarchist poseur. However, his artwork is good, though mildly and even obsessively pornographic.
January 26, 2016
Parts were very poetic, but at times the book was slow reading. Ferlinghetti wrote little about the beats. He did mention William Burroughs, Gregory Corso, and Alan Ginsberg very little. The writing was broken up with Ferlinghetti's on drawings. Most of his travels were connected to poetry conferences or readings.
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February 2, 2016So glad I found this in the library.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews