Wild Dreams of a New Beginning

by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Wild Dreams of a New Beginning brings together two acclaimed poetry volumes by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, one of our "ageless radicals and true bards" (Booklist).


Who Are We Now? (1976), the first half of Wild Dreams, takes a long poetic look at the cultural fallout of a more radical time. This probing of the changes in the American psyche through the 1970s is carried forward in the second part, Landscapes of Living Dying (1979)—a work originally hailed by Library Journal as "Ferlinghetti's strongest work since his 1957 A Coney Island of the Mind. . . . [He] pursues his disheveled muse with the innocent passion of a young beatnik, hiding his authentic erudition behind a comfortable guise of spontaneous composition."

Genres: Poetry, Classics

129 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1988

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

[Dee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Has so many good poems that had i not read this i would not have been interested in his work so much

[Grace · Rating 4 out of 5]

He was the reason I left Ohio to discover the City Lights Bookstore and it was because of this book.

[Henry Sturcke · Rating 4 out of 5]

As we approach the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, it’s interesting to recall the mood of the country a half-century ago, as the bicentennial was celebrated with the pride of the tall ships only partially obscuring the post-Vietnam, post-Watergate malaise. This collection, containing two volumes of poems by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, is a good place to start. As was often pointed out, Ferlinghetti wore his erudition lightly. In addition, his concerns over technology, industrialism, and consumerism, with the harm done to the environment and to human relations, while always present, never seem to banish a mood of celebration. The center here is his “Populist Manifesto,” but I enjoyed the entire collection, particularly “Wild Dreams of a New Beginning,” “The Old Italians Dying,” and “Sweet Flying Dream.” I was also impressed by the poems based on paintings. A true son of Whitman.

[Nathaniel Houser · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent collection of poetry. A call to arms, fists, words and strength for all poets young and old.
Here is a list of poems from the book that really stood out to me:
Alienation: Two Bees
Populist Manifesto
Eight People on a Golf Course and One Bird of Freedom Flying Over
The Sea and Ourselves at Cape Ann
A Sweet Flying Dream
The Billboard Painters
White on White
Adieu A Charlot (Second Populist Manifesto)
Wild Life Cameo, Early Morn
Rough Song of Animals Dying

[Darth_lil · Rating 5 out of 5]

Raw, honest, thought-provoking. The second to last poem 'Rough Song of Animals Dying' is the best ecopoem ever written before ecopoetry was even a term.

[Juliet Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lawrence Ferlinghetti has been described as one of our 'ageless radicals and true bards'. Before I picked up this collection of his, I took that description with a pinch of salt, being very used to finding highly praised poets to often be disappointing in the reading. However in this case there was no disappointment at all. Ferlinghetti's poetry is well crafted, vivid, passionate and engaged with life. He also has a strong environmental consciousness. Seascape with Sun and Eagle describes an eagle in a beautiful meditative style with a poignant ending, Alienation: Two Bees focuses on the communication and sense of community in bees, Billboard Painters outlines the history of how colonialisation has destroyed natural beauty over and over again. Many other of his poems have an environmental message running through them or referenced, for example in A Nation of Sheep:

The little Cessna flies low
over the socked in snowfields
It's a late spring silent spring

makes discreet reference to Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring. But Ferlinghetti also has a light touch, in Populist Manifesto, he nods at Allen Ginsberg's Howl with these lines:

We have seen the best minds of our generation
destroyed by boredom at poetry readings.

I suspect that Ferlinghetti is considered unfashionable these days but I can't imagine anyone being destroyed by boredom at his readings!

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ferlinghetti is my sister and her friend David, the poet of our soul. He is my Uncle Mike. He has always been the one who “tells the tale too truly.” When I went on my first trip away from my family (from California to Boston as a high school senior), I inevitably fell into a bookstore and met this book. I opened to the first poem and read: who are we now who are we ever. I closed it, already decided, and bought it with my meager funds. Now, over 25 years later, I read it late at night when the house is quiet. I read it when I’m alone and the world is too loud or not loud enough. Ferlinghetti’s poetry still stirs me - and not just this book. But this was the first book I bought when I was young and ready to first listen.

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ferlinghetti was one of my favorite poets when i first got into poetry, late high school, early college. looking back on some of his work the literalness of it can seem almost didactic and lacking a certain freedom that would appeal to me or on the other end that sense of focus and intent that makes taut poetry (or prose) more appealing to me. Still, his progressive politics, his sense of organization, his ability to recognize the importance of marketing outsider, marginal or avant-garde work is something i have the utmost respect for, though that is neither here nor there when it comes to his creative output.

[Daniel Hagedorn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Today marks Ferlinghetti's 100th Birthday (3/24/2019), so I looked through my shelf and took out this collection to re-read, search again for the angel headed hipster in the lost San Franciscan Night. After the first poem, I went and listened to the related Dylan song, as released versus take 2 from New York. There is still magic in these lines. There's a lot of magic, though it doesn't resonate as much as when I was twenty and lost and hungry for words to frame this imaginary existence. Still, thank you!

[Bryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Back when I used to read things other than slightly tinged religous texts, I liked Lawrence. A lot. This was one of my favorite collections.

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was okay, but not my favorite of Ferlinghetti's works.

[Kirsten · Rating 4 out of 5]

This isn't my favorite of Ferlinghetti's collections, but it's still truly excellent.

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful poems.