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Americus, Book I
Lawrence Ferlinghetti lights out for the territories with Book I of his own born-in-the-U.S.A. epic, Americus .
Describing Americus as "part documentary, part public pillow-talk, part personal epica descant, a canto unsung, a banal history, a true fiction, lyric and political," Ferlinghetti combines "universal texts, snatches of song, words or phrases, murmuring of love or hate, from Lotte Lenya to the latest soul singer, sayings and shibboleths from Yogi Berra to the National Anthem, the Gettysburg Address or the Ginsberg Address, that haunt our nocturnal imagination." This book is a wake-up call that breaks new ground in the grand tradition of Whitman, W.C. Williams, Charles Olson, and Ezra Pound, as Ferlinghetti cruises our literary and political landscapes, past and present, to create an autobiography of American consciousness.
Describing Americus as "part documentary, part public pillow-talk, part personal epica descant, a canto unsung, a banal history, a true fiction, lyric and political," Ferlinghetti combines "universal texts, snatches of song, words or phrases, murmuring of love or hate, from Lotte Lenya to the latest soul singer, sayings and shibboleths from Yogi Berra to the National Anthem, the Gettysburg Address or the Ginsberg Address, that haunt our nocturnal imagination." This book is a wake-up call that breaks new ground in the grand tradition of Whitman, W.C. Williams, Charles Olson, and Ezra Pound, as Ferlinghetti cruises our literary and political landscapes, past and present, to create an autobiography of American consciousness.
- GenresPoetry
90 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2004
2 people are currently reading
92 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
October 1, 2013
The 2003 precursor to 2013's Time of Useful Consciousness, the daydream style poetry in Americus I has been described by Lawrence Ferlinghetti as "part documentary, part public pillow-talk, part personal epic--a descant, a canto unsung, a banal history, a true fiction, lyric and political," combining "universal texts, snatches of song, words or phrases, murmuring of love or hate . . . that haunt our nocturnal imagination." All this is true and the tone of the work is set with the opening line, drawing on the work of T.S. Eliot, "To summarize the past by theft and allusion. . . " The stream of consciousness technique employed throughout can also be thought of as a collage by Raoul Hausmann (as Ferlinghetti writes, "Dadaist collages/flashed upon our mindscreen").
Summarizing the past by theft and allusion, something done by the best of writers and by many an American folksinger, is something Ferlinghetti has done for many years -- and particularly so since Tyrannus Nix. Here he borrows from and alludes to a diverse collection of people who are all part of America's collective consciousness, including but by no means limited to: T.S. Eliot, Bob Dylan, Gertrude Stein ("making Americans/(in her own image)), Sacco and Vanzetti ("IF iT HAD NOT BEEN FOR THESE THiNG, I MiGHT HAVE LiVE OUT MY LiFE TALKING AT STREET CORNERS TO SCORNING YOUNG MEN. I MIGHT HAVE DiE, UNMARKED, UNKNOWN, A FAILURE. NOW WE ARE NOT A FAILURE . . ."), Allen Ginsberg ("Moloch! Solitude! Filth! Ugliness!"), Yogi Berra, John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway, Jack Kerouac ("HERE DOWN ON DARK EARTH/Before we all go to Heaven/VISIONS OF AMERICA"), Ezra Pound, Langston Hughes, Emma Goldman, Howard Zinn and, perhaps most notably, Walt Whitman, drawing also heavily upon writers from Homer to Hugo. It's a long strange trip, with many detours and phantom hitchhikers whispering nearly forgotten promises in our ears as we travel with Ferlinghetti across the expansive American landscape of the past 200 plus years in all of 90 pages.
Many of the poems in this collection can be found elsewhere in the Ferlinghetti cannon, including in Poetry as Insurgent Art and What is Poetry? This does not diminish the strength of this work, however. Although I've read some of the words before, they still spoke to me, still conjured up images of the American experience, and of the world experience at that.
What sets this work apart from 2013's Time of Useful Consciousness, to me, is that there the poet, still an optimist, feels nearly defeated; there is still a chance to save the world from ruining itself, but this chance is becoming slimmer each day. Here -- before the start of the decade long war in Iraq, two years into the now more than a decade long war with Afghanistan, before the Great Recession -- Ferlinghetti seems more hopeful than he would a decade later. He writes: "For there are hopeful choices still to be chosen . . . And there is no end no end to the doors of perception still to be opened and the jet streams of light in the upper air of the spirit of man in the outer space inside us/Shining! Transcendent!/Into the crystal night of time/In the endless silence of the soul/In the long loud tale of man/In his endless sound and fury/signifying everything." By 2013, the immediacy of the need for meaningful qualitative change in the world was still in Ferlinghetti's voice (perhaps more than ever before), but his hope had seemingly diminished.
Summarizing the past by theft and allusion, something done by the best of writers and by many an American folksinger, is something Ferlinghetti has done for many years -- and particularly so since Tyrannus Nix. Here he borrows from and alludes to a diverse collection of people who are all part of America's collective consciousness, including but by no means limited to: T.S. Eliot, Bob Dylan, Gertrude Stein ("making Americans/(in her own image)), Sacco and Vanzetti ("IF iT HAD NOT BEEN FOR THESE THiNG, I MiGHT HAVE LiVE OUT MY LiFE TALKING AT STREET CORNERS TO SCORNING YOUNG MEN. I MIGHT HAVE DiE, UNMARKED, UNKNOWN, A FAILURE. NOW WE ARE NOT A FAILURE . . ."), Allen Ginsberg ("Moloch! Solitude! Filth! Ugliness!"), Yogi Berra, John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway, Jack Kerouac ("HERE DOWN ON DARK EARTH/Before we all go to Heaven/VISIONS OF AMERICA"), Ezra Pound, Langston Hughes, Emma Goldman, Howard Zinn and, perhaps most notably, Walt Whitman, drawing also heavily upon writers from Homer to Hugo. It's a long strange trip, with many detours and phantom hitchhikers whispering nearly forgotten promises in our ears as we travel with Ferlinghetti across the expansive American landscape of the past 200 plus years in all of 90 pages.
Many of the poems in this collection can be found elsewhere in the Ferlinghetti cannon, including in Poetry as Insurgent Art and What is Poetry? This does not diminish the strength of this work, however. Although I've read some of the words before, they still spoke to me, still conjured up images of the American experience, and of the world experience at that.
What sets this work apart from 2013's Time of Useful Consciousness, to me, is that there the poet, still an optimist, feels nearly defeated; there is still a chance to save the world from ruining itself, but this chance is becoming slimmer each day. Here -- before the start of the decade long war in Iraq, two years into the now more than a decade long war with Afghanistan, before the Great Recession -- Ferlinghetti seems more hopeful than he would a decade later. He writes: "For there are hopeful choices still to be chosen . . . And there is no end no end to the doors of perception still to be opened and the jet streams of light in the upper air of the spirit of man in the outer space inside us/Shining! Transcendent!/Into the crystal night of time/In the endless silence of the soul/In the long loud tale of man/In his endless sound and fury/signifying everything." By 2013, the immediacy of the need for meaningful qualitative change in the world was still in Ferlinghetti's voice (perhaps more than ever before), but his hope had seemingly diminished.
March 4, 2021
Αμέρικους είναι η ποιητική αφήγηση της ιστορίας της βορειοαμερικανικής ηπείρου μέσα από "τον προαιώνιο διάλογο στο ποτάμι των εικόνων με εκείνο το θαυμάσιο αναπάντεχο που τις χαρακτηρίζει" (15), όπως λέει ο Φερλινγκεττι.
Ο Φ. Αναπτύσσει ωραίες ποιητικές ιδέες αρχικά , όπως εκείνη για την αίσθηση πως όταν γενιώμαστε είμαστε" μια ασυναίσθητη σωρός/ που μπορούσε να γίνει σχεδόν ο,τιδήποτε/ στο μεγάλο άγνωστο" 17
Έπειτα αναπτύσσει τις εκδοχές του νέου ανθρώπου, προερχόμενου από την Ευρώπη, του αμερικανού και την εποποιία του.
Μιλά για
"Νήματα από εραστές σφιχτοπλεγμένα/ σε αποχαυνωμένους ερωτικούς κόμπους/ (ή όχι σε κόμπους)" (25)
Κι έπειτα στο τρίτο μέρος, από τη σελιδα31 ως την 57 δίνει αριστουργηματικους στίχους ορίζοντας την ίδια την ποίηση, όπως οι εξής:
"Ποίηση είναι τα νέα από την αναπτυσσόμενη περιοχή των παραμεθοριων της συνείδησης" 39
"Είναι ένας πιανίστας σ ένα εγκαταλελειμμένο παραθαλάσσιο καζίνο, που παίζει ακόμα" 39
"Είναι μια Μαντλέν βουτηγμένη στο τσάι του Προυστ" 39
"Είναι μια γυμνή λάμπα σ ένα ξενοδοχείο αστέγων στην πόλη με του πουλιού το γάλα στις τρεις το πρωί" 45
"Για να γεννηθεί η μεγάλη ποίηση πρέπει να υπάρχει πείνα και πάθος" 53
Ο Φ. Έχει λοιπόν ποιητικως ορίσει την ποίηση στις σελίδες αυτές για να φτιάξει έπειτα το saga της ιστορίας της Αμερικής από τη σκοπιά της βίας, της εκμετάλλευσης και της καταπίεσης των αδυνάτων. Οι στιχουργικοι ορισμοί του θα μπορούσαν να ειναι σαν αισθητικά εργαλεία, σαν ανάπτυξη της τεχνικής του ώστε μετά να αναλύσει την κοινωνική ιστορία.
Έπειτα περνά στον ποιητικό και αισθητικό σκελετό του βιβλίου του αρχίζοντας με την διαπίστωση πως αυτός που ελέγχει το παρόν ελέγχει και το παρελθόν 73
Κι έτσι Παίρνει τίτλους δημοσιογραφικούς και μέσα στον "προαιώνιο διάλογο/ όλων των φωνών που τραγούδησαν ή έγραψαν / (φορείς της συνείδησης μας)" βάζει τις εκατομμύρια γραφίδες των δημοσιογράφων που δίνουν την ιστορία και αναθεωρείται έπειτα για να ταιριάζει στις εξουσιαστές .71
Από εδώ ξεκινά το πρόβλημα με το βιβλίο, καθώς το κυρίως ποιητικό σώμα είναι μια φλύαρη παράθεση ιστορικών γεγονότων και πολύ name dropping.
Τα ιστορικά γεγονότα είναι τίτλοι ειδήσεων και σκάνε αφηγήσεις που αφορούν στην πολεμική εμπειρία, όπως την έζησε και ο ίδιος ο Φ. Μαζί με παραθέσεις γραμμάτων στρατιωτικών, της εμπόλεμης Ευρώπης, αναλύσεις βιβλίων του Χέμινγουεϊ που είναι καθοριστικές για την ψυχή του αμερικανισμού και ειδήσεις ειδήσεις ειδήσεις.
Όλα αυτά δίνονται με απλότητα, αλλά ελάχιστα ελκυστικα, διόλου λυρικά και με την αίσθηση του μπολικου και του τετριμμενου. Δεν ελέγχει τις εικόνες καθημερινότητας αλλά μάλλον πιο γενικές και αόριστες αναφορές που καθιστούν το κείμενο ανιαρό.
Για τις πρώτες σελίδες του, ωστόσο, εκείνες τις αριστουργηματικες σελίδες, αξίζει να διαβαστεί.
Ο Φ. Αναπτύσσει ωραίες ποιητικές ιδέες αρχικά , όπως εκείνη για την αίσθηση πως όταν γενιώμαστε είμαστε" μια ασυναίσθητη σωρός/ που μπορούσε να γίνει σχεδόν ο,τιδήποτε/ στο μεγάλο άγνωστο" 17
Έπειτα αναπτύσσει τις εκδοχές του νέου ανθρώπου, προερχόμενου από την Ευρώπη, του αμερικανού και την εποποιία του.
Μιλά για
"Νήματα από εραστές σφιχτοπλεγμένα/ σε αποχαυνωμένους ερωτικούς κόμπους/ (ή όχι σε κόμπους)" (25)
Κι έπειτα στο τρίτο μέρος, από τη σελιδα31 ως την 57 δίνει αριστουργηματικους στίχους ορίζοντας την ίδια την ποίηση, όπως οι εξής:
"Ποίηση είναι τα νέα από την αναπτυσσόμενη περιοχή των παραμεθοριων της συνείδησης" 39
"Είναι ένας πιανίστας σ ένα εγκαταλελειμμένο παραθαλάσσιο καζίνο, που παίζει ακόμα" 39
"Είναι μια Μαντλέν βουτηγμένη στο τσάι του Προυστ" 39
"Είναι μια γυμνή λάμπα σ ένα ξενοδοχείο αστέγων στην πόλη με του πουλιού το γάλα στις τρεις το πρωί" 45
"Για να γεννηθεί η μεγάλη ποίηση πρέπει να υπάρχει πείνα και πάθος" 53
Ο Φ. Έχει λοιπόν ποιητικως ορίσει την ποίηση στις σελίδες αυτές για να φτιάξει έπειτα το saga της ιστορίας της Αμερικής από τη σκοπιά της βίας, της εκμετάλλευσης και της καταπίεσης των αδυνάτων. Οι στιχουργικοι ορισμοί του θα μπορούσαν να ειναι σαν αισθητικά εργαλεία, σαν ανάπτυξη της τεχνικής του ώστε μετά να αναλύσει την κοινωνική ιστορία.
Έπειτα περνά στον ποιητικό και αισθητικό σκελετό του βιβλίου του αρχίζοντας με την διαπίστωση πως αυτός που ελέγχει το παρόν ελέγχει και το παρελθόν 73
Κι έτσι Παίρνει τίτλους δημοσιογραφικούς και μέσα στον "προαιώνιο διάλογο/ όλων των φωνών που τραγούδησαν ή έγραψαν / (φορείς της συνείδησης μας)" βάζει τις εκατομμύρια γραφίδες των δημοσιογράφων που δίνουν την ιστορία και αναθεωρείται έπειτα για να ταιριάζει στις εξουσιαστές .71
Από εδώ ξεκινά το πρόβλημα με το βιβλίο, καθώς το κυρίως ποιητικό σώμα είναι μια φλύαρη παράθεση ιστορικών γεγονότων και πολύ name dropping.
Τα ιστορικά γεγονότα είναι τίτλοι ειδήσεων και σκάνε αφηγήσεις που αφορούν στην πολεμική εμπειρία, όπως την έζησε και ο ίδιος ο Φ. Μαζί με παραθέσεις γραμμάτων στρατιωτικών, της εμπόλεμης Ευρώπης, αναλύσεις βιβλίων του Χέμινγουεϊ που είναι καθοριστικές για την ψυχή του αμερικανισμού και ειδήσεις ειδήσεις ειδήσεις.
Όλα αυτά δίνονται με απλότητα, αλλά ελάχιστα ελκυστικα, διόλου λυρικά και με την αίσθηση του μπολικου και του τετριμμενου. Δεν ελέγχει τις εικόνες καθημερινότητας αλλά μάλλον πιο γενικές και αόριστες αναφορές που καθιστούν το κείμενο ανιαρό.
Για τις πρώτες σελίδες του, ωστόσο, εκείνες τις αριστουργηματικες σελίδες, αξίζει να διαβαστεί.
August 8, 2023
Americus is a rush of somethings old, somethings new, and much that is borrowed that’s melancholy and horrifically true. Ferlinghetti’s poetic fugue is told in the rhythm of his musings on America and Europe through the twentieth century in a rapid rush of verbiage that is musical. But unlike a mental fugue state he remembers everything. It’s ecstatic, punctuated by the horrors of war and the wonders and contractions of life. Starting with a quote from T. S. Eliot the poem is stuffed full of allusions and quotes from authors as various as Victor Hugo and Ezra Pound, song lyrics from George M. Cohan and Tuli Kuperberg, and phrases in French, German, and Italian, all of which Ferlinghetti scrupulously footnotes at the end of the book.
It’s a bravo performance by a master poet.
It’s a bravo performance by a master poet.
October 19, 2025
“Into the crystal night of time
In the long loud tale of man
In the endless silence of the soul
In his endless sound and fury
signifying everything
The dancing continues
There is a sound of revelry by night”
“…If the universe or the world had a soul, the aim of poetry would be
to reveal it.
Poetry is more than painting sunlight on the wall of a house.
It is Van Gogh's ear echoing with all the blood of the world.
It is a lightning rod transmitting epiphanies.
It is a dragonfly catching fire.
It is the sea light of Greece, the diamond light of Greece.
It is a lamp of the imagination lighting up every darkness….”
In the long loud tale of man
In the endless silence of the soul
In his endless sound and fury
signifying everything
The dancing continues
There is a sound of revelry by night”
“…If the universe or the world had a soul, the aim of poetry would be
to reveal it.
Poetry is more than painting sunlight on the wall of a house.
It is Van Gogh's ear echoing with all the blood of the world.
It is a lightning rod transmitting epiphanies.
It is a dragonfly catching fire.
It is the sea light of Greece, the diamond light of Greece.
It is a lamp of the imagination lighting up every darkness….”
September 26, 2018
My copy is autographed! Ferlinghetti is a National Treasure, and we are blessed that he has lived this long.
February 5, 2022
Excellent later work from Ferlinghetti.
December 5, 2024
starts off slow as molasses in january but finishes with a flourish into an american epic fit for its preeminent author.
July 12, 2008
A lovely book. Written at the age of 84, Mr. Ferlinghetti is astonishing. When you are writing at 84, you can by and large do whatever you want, and he does that here, blending together all sorts of things to create an intriguing poem. There are little passages referencing Kerouac here and there in the work and they are very moving. There are also a few quotations from Thomas Wolfe that always give one pause with the power and haunting beauty. Lawrence: long may you run.
May 1, 2014
Started off great, then went downhill fast, with each page becoming duller than the last.
Also, I didn't like the stream of consciousness, aka I'm-too-cool-for-punctuation. Please use commas, semi-colons and periods...
I guess when you're old and popular, you can pull just about anything out of your wrinkly ass and people think it's brilliant.
Also, I didn't like the stream of consciousness, aka I'm-too-cool-for-punctuation. Please use commas, semi-colons and periods...
I guess when you're old and popular, you can pull just about anything out of your wrinkly ass and people think it's brilliant.
July 29, 2007
Completely slept on book which starts out as typical Ferlinghetti then gets really really good i.e. Lawrence Ferlinghetti got his swagger back and I think it's one of the most important book-length poems to be published.
April 16, 2008
This book blew me away. Ferlinghetti describes America and all we brought with us from the old world in short, perfect poetry. So compact and powerful that it overwhelmed me every few stanzas. A great work.
January 9, 2008
got this as a gift a few years ago. i read and read this one every few months. thought provoking.
February 26, 2016
Ferlinghetti 's early books are the most enjoyable of the ones I've read, but this semi-memoir and political commentary is often fine as well.
April 11, 2017
4 1/2 stars
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews