Ferlinghetti autobiography analysis paralysis

By NASRULLAH MAMBROLon •

Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s (born March 24, 1919) poetry may be looked on as a kind of travelog in which he has subjectively recorded choice experiences or montages from experience, often in a jazzlike or free-associative manner.

For Ferlinghetti, “reality” itself becomes metaphorical, something he endows with mythical import, although he is not a poet given to hidden meanings. Although his poetry is largely autobiographical, an adequate analysis of his poetry is possible without thorough biographical knowledge; Ferlinghetti’s poetry is not excessively self-contained.

A Coney Island of the Mind

Whereas Ferlinghetti’s poems are for the most part historical, or autobiographical, Ferlinghetti the man is a myth, appearing as a cult hero, one of the original Beats.

Sometimes a martyr to a cause, Ferlinghetti will occasionally insert his political ideologies into a poem for no apparent reason other than that