lawrence ferlinghetti

• san francisconun şair i azamı oluyor kendileri. hısmı, zaman zaman hayli medyatik olmuş ginsberg kadar popüler ferlinghetti de. bunda yayıncı kimliğinin de, yayıncı kimliğiyle katıldığı howl duruşmasının da hayli parmağı olmuş. ferlinghetti'nin -bir ihtimal, sorbonne'daki yıllarında "modern şiirde kent" konulu doktora tezini yazarken iyiden iyiye meşgul olduğu isimlerden biri olan hart cranein chaplinesque ^* şiirinin de dolayımıyla- adını bir charlie chaplin filminden alan city lights yayınevini kurması beat generationa resmen katılmasından bir süre önceye denk düşüyor. kenneth rexroth aracılığıyla gittiği six gallery buluşmasından bir süre sonra ferlinghetti ginsberg'e ginsberg whitmanmışcasına bir mektup yazıyor. "en yakın zamanda masamda istiyorum". "kimse basmazsa biz basarız" düsturuyla yola çıkmış olan city lights sonrasında iyiden iyiye bir beat buluşma noktası haline geliyor. bilirsiniz, beat'in san francisco kanadı daha az ünlü oysa daha kalabalıktır ya zaten.. michael mcclurelar, diane di primalar, gregory corsolar, gary snyderlar..bir yandan da adını anmayı sevdiklerini -artaud, rimbaud, breton, whitman, "apollinaire?" - basıyor city lights'la ferlinghetti. bir süre san francisco chronicle'da "poetry as news" başlıklı bir sütunda yazmış. böylece her(onun) anlatısındaki bir uktesi gerçekleşmiş demek..kısacası şöyleydi, a coney island of the mindın frankoamerikan, new yorklu san franciscolu şairi.
  
  yirmi yıl sonrasından, belki en çok ginsberg'le söyleşime giren, howlı apaçık yineleyip direksiyon kıran ve bittiği yerden belki yine ginsbergün a supermarket in californiasına bağlanan manifestosu şöyle:
  
  populist manifesto no. 1
  
  poets, come out of your closets,
  open your windows, open your doors,
  you have been holed-up too long
  in your closed worlds.
  come down, come down
  from your russian hills and telegraph hills,
  your beacon hills and your chapel hills,
  your mount analogues and montparnasses,
  down from your foothills and mountains,
  out of your teepees and domes.
  the trees are still falling
  and we’ll to the woods no more.
  no time now for sitting in them
  as man burns down his own house
  to roast his pig
  no more chanting hare krishna
  while rome burns.
  san francisco’s burning,
  mayakovsky’s moscow’s burning
  the fossil-fuels of life.
  night & the horse approaches
  eating light, heat & power,
  and the clouds have trousers.
  no time now for the artist to hide
  above, beyond, behind the scenes,
  indifferent, paring his fingernails,
  refining himself out of existence.
  no time now for our little literary games,
  no time now for our paranoias & hypochondrias,
  no time now for fear & loathing,
  time now only for light & love.
  we have seen the best minds of our generation
  destroyed by boredom at poetry readings.
  poetry isn’t a secret society,
  it isn’t a temple either.
  secret words & chants won’t do any longer.
  the hour of oming is over,
  the time of keening come,
  a time for keening & rejoicing
  over the coming end
  of industrial civilization
  which is bad for earth & man.
  time now to face outward
  in the full lotus position
  with eyes wide open,
  time now to open your mouths
  with a new open speech,
  time now to communicate with all sentient beings,
  all you ‘poets of the cities’
  hung in museums including myself,
  all you poet’s poets writing poetry
  about poetry,
  all you poetry workshop poets
  in the boondock heart of america,
  all you housebroken ezra pounds,
  all you far-out freaked-out cut-up poets,
  all you pre-stressed concrete poets,
  all you cunnilingual poets,
  all you pay-toilet poets groaning with graffiti,
  all you a-train swingers who never swing on birches,
  all you masters of the sawmill haiku in the siberias of america,
  all you eyeless unrealists,
  all you self-occulting supersurrealists,
  all you bedroom visionaries and closet agitpropagators,
  all you groucho marxist poets
  and leisure-class comrades
  who lie around all day and talk about the workingclass proletariat,
  all you catholic anarchists of poetry,
  all you black mountaineers of poetry,
  all you boston brahims and bolinas bucolics,
  all you den mothers of poetry,
  all you zen brothers of poetry,
  all you suicide lovers of poetry,
  all you hairy professors of poesie,
  all you poetry reviewers
  drinking the blood of the poet,
  all you poetry police -
  where are whitman’s wild children,
  where the great voices speaking out
  with a sense of sweetness and sublimity,
  where the great’new vision,
  the great world-view,
  the high prophetic song
  of the immense earth
  and all that sings in it
  and our relations to it -
  poets, descend
  to the street of the world once more
  and open your minds & eyes
  with the old visual delight,
  clear your throat and speak up,
  poetry is dead, long live poetry
  with terrible eyes and buffalo strength.
  don’t wait for the revolution
  or it’ll happen without you,
  stop mumbling and speak out
  with a new wide-open poetry
  with a new commonsensual ‘public surface’
  with other subjective levels
  or other subversive levels,
  a tuning fork in the inner ear
  to strike below the surface.
  of your own sweet self still sing
  yet utter ‘the word en-masse -
  poetry the common carrier
  for the transportation of the public
  to higher places
  than other wheels can carry it.
  poetry still falls from the skies
  into our streets still open.
  they haven’t put up the barricades, yet,
  the streets still alive with faces,
  lovely men & women still walking there,
  still lovely creatures everywhere,
  in the eyes of all the secret of all
  still buried there,
  whitman’s wild children still sleeping there,
  awake and walk in the open air.