San Francisco Poems

by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Here are all of Ferlinghetti’s poems set in the city he has lived in for over half a century. He brings alive, with wit and lyricism, scenes of city a Giants baseball game, the Green Street Marching Mortuary Band, bohemian North Beach, Golden Gate Park, yachts on the Bay, and more. Also included are historic photographs, scattered prose pieces, and the text of his mischievous inaugural address with his vision of the city’s history as a poetic center and suggestions for keeping it that way. Lawrence Ferlinghetti is a bookman, painter and author of poetry, fiction, essays and plays. His most recent books are How to Paint Sunlight (poetry) and Love in the Days of Rage (fiction).

Genres: Poetry, The United States Of America, American, Science Fiction

96 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

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

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this on the plane home from San Francisco. It was an introduction to Ferlinghetti for me, and had the added attraction of being set in the city I had just spent time in. I bought it at City Lights, a bookstore that is not to be missed, even if it has become a tourist attraction. The poems range from the 1950s to the 2000s and it was fun to guess what era each was from. There was one written from a dog's POV that was very SF (very chill dogs everywhere it seems). In my favorites, I felt I was roaming the city with the poet, following as his thoughts are set off by vivid visual moments - a convertible and a trash truck at a red light, a wedding party coming out of a church, old Italian men sitting on benches in a park outside a church. Ferlinghetti also describes the city he loves so much beautifully, and tries to get at what makes it so special and why he fears for its future.

[Steve Sarner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bouncer’s Bar

“It was that kind of place
long on atmosphere
and short on talk”

To be able to walk to City Lights Book Store
To be able browse its historic shelves
To be able to purchase this little book of Ferlinghetti
To be able to intimately know these neighborhoods
To be able to read the San Francisco Poet Laureate’s Inaugural Address
To be able to see The City, much still today as it was then
To be able to write this review…

“At the Golden Gate, a single plover far at sea…
a single rower almost out of sight,
rows his skull to eternity”

Lucky and Goodreads indeed.

[Jessie]

Picked this up at City Lights while in San Francisco. Being in that store was like a religious experience for a Beat geek like me, especially the little room upstairs. It was like walking in the footsteps of greatness. This is one of my most prized posessions.

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant little collection from LF. Well put together, giving a nice sense of the man's career and voice.

[Sherry Tamone · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this book was so nostalgic! I grew up reading his poetry and going to same bars!

[Sterling Hardaway · Rating 5 out of 5]

Funny, poignant, sometimes subversive, other times sweet and romantic. Pretty much everything you’d want poetry to be with a very specific lens on San Francisco as the main epicenter of subject matter. It’s wild how Ferlinghetti wrote these in the 50s and 60s and some still ring true to the spirit of SF today, while other poems give you a peek into old worlds that cease to exist. Just really well done and has me wanting to add more poetry into my reading diet.

[Richard Magahiz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every so often it's good to read something to remind me that poetry doesn't have to be minimal to be good. Not all the poems in this slim volume is a masterpiece, perhaps not even most of them, but a few of them did make me take notice. It's also fun to see the photos reproduced at the end depicting the Beats at various points in their epoch.

[Black Heart Magazine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyed Ferlinghetti's "Challenges to Young Poets," but all these San Francisco poems were excellent.

[Diana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love this collection of poems by Ferlinghetti all about San Francisco, the city I enjoy most. Favorites about Chinese Dragons and the quality of light.

[Ally Perrin · Rating 4 out of 5]

looking
like a living questionmark
into the
great gramaphone
of puzzling existence
with its wondrous hollow horn
which always seems
just about to spout forth
some Victorious answer
to everything

[Ethan Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ferlinghetti’s prose is magical, mystifying, and whimsical, so much for it to feel documentary and impressionistic of not just the city he called home, but the country he saw changing.

[Ben · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every time I go to San Francisco I feel that a little bit has changed, a little bit has been taken away from this city on the bay, once a home to many immigrants, dockworkers, poets and writers, where the eccentric could find refuge from a world that demanded assimilation. On every visit, this city seems a little more gentrified, a little more homogenous, a little less open, something Lawrence Ferlinghetti captures in his inaugural address as Poet Laureate of San Francisco, which opens this collection of poetry. There are certain neighborhoods - North Beach, Chinatown - which retain a little bit of that which made them unique, but it's slipping away and may well be gone in another generation or two.

I had previously read many of the poems contained in this collection, as they appear in other works, like his chef d'ouevre A Coney Island of the Mind, A Far Rockaway of the Heart and Starting from San Francisco. I always enjoy reading Ferlinghetti and perhaps it was a little bittersweet this time, as it's the first time I'm reading him since his death earlier this year at 101 years of age. But I think what struck me most this time around was that these were all poems about San Francisco, where I had just visited, a city I love and which I go back to every few years.

I only hope, as I know Lawrence Ferlinghetti would too if he were still with us, that San Francisco does not continue on its path of "corporate monoculture", gentrification and homogeneity. I hope that it can not only retain whatever exists still of that which it once was, but gain back some of what is has lost and forge a path forward that honors uniqueness, that rejects capitalism, neoliberalism and widening inequalities and that becomes a place again where the individual can thrive, where the artist is inspired and where the immigrant is accepted with open arms. Such places are few and far between in America today.

[Xavier Guillaume · Rating 4 out of 5]

I believe any Young Poet should read his poem "Challenges to Young Poets" that is found in this book. It has inspired me and helped my writing. I especially love his advise to "Think subjectively, write objectively" and "Think long thoughts in short sentences." Some of his advise makes me laugh, but I still find these amusing parts important, such as "Don't contemplate your navel in poetry and think the rest of the world is going to think it's important," and "Don't be so open-minded your brains fall out."

Also, I absolutely love his poem "The Great Chinese Dragon". I especially love how he tells about "the great Chinese dragon passing thru the Golden Gate spouting streams of water like a string of fireboats then broke loose somewhere near the China Camp gulped down a hundred Chinese seamen and forthwith ate up all the shrimp in San Francisco Bay" How imaginative! But he takes this idea further and uses it to explain why "the great Chinese dragon was therefore forever after confined in a Chinatown basement."

Perhaps you have to be familiar with Chinese New Year parades, but basically, there is this giant 201 foot-long dragon that is for all intents and purposes stuffed in an old Chinatown basement, where it sits quietly picking up dust until that fateful day of Chinese New Year, when he can "be seen creeping out of an Adler Alley cellar like a worm out of a hole."

So there is this giant paper dragon that stretches for blocks that takes 100 men and women to carry it, but Lawrence Ferlinghetti couldn't leave it at a description such as that. No, instead he anthropomorphizes this dragon by saying it "has eaten a hundred humans and their legs pop out of his underside and are his walking legs which are not mentioned in the official printed program." His humor, sarcasm, and imagination make Lawrence Ferlinghetti's poems so captivating.

All in all, if you ever find yourself wandering around San Francisco, while captivated by the city's magnificent splendor, pick up this book and become inspired. Perhaps these poems will open up your mind, allowing you to see the City in a whole new way.

[Mark McKenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting little book from a man I didn't know much about. I was given this book as a gift a few years ago and I've only just now gotten around to reading it. I only wish I'd read it sooner.

As a former art student and aspiring writer, this book offers plenty of motivation. It talks about writing well, and writing about things that are happening now, things that are relevant. There are a few poems that are fantastic. My favourite being the two couples in the two cars, and the one about the Chinese dragon.

I've never been to SF but if I ever visit I'll take this with me. I'd be worried to see what Ferlinghetti talks about in this book. How the art of the city was lost. That happens in most plac£s now.

[Mark Farley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This timeless collection of contemporary verse from one of the greatest living poets truly encapsulates the oddity and languish beauty of San Francisco's North Beach suburb. I bought this in the City Lights bookstore one summer and wandered upto Washington Square as I took in the history and the atmosphere and it felt like I had an old, wise friend with me to shoot the shit and comfort me in my journey.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Focusing on the poet's work describing his hometown of San Francisco, this short book provides an overview of his career from the Sixties through the 2000's. Sometimes, I think his political leanings get in the way of his poetry, diatribes rather than metaphor, and he doesn't trust his audience enough. But overall, the poems are smart and sometimes beautiful and really bring San Francisco to life.

[Danae · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ferlinghetti es tremendo.
No sólo escribe bien sino que también es tan político. Tiene una visión muy política de lo que tiene que ser un poeta. Y ama tanto San Francisco que se ha vuelto un activista contra la gentrificación.

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

[Darrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I read Ferlinghetti's work it feels like I'm in San Francisco with the naming of places, the acknowledgement of people, the look at daily life. It's Whitmanesque.

I recommend to read overall, it's short and it's a good cross section of Ferlinghetti's work.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this book at City Lights after a day spent exploring the city. City Lights was a pilgrimage spot for me. Reading this is another kind of pilgrimage, although Ferlinghetti's. We are lucky that he has brought us along through the poems and prose in the book.

My favorite, which won't be surprising to those of you who know me, is "Two Scavengers in a Truck, Two Beautiful People in a Mercedes." You can see, feel, hear, and smell this short meeting at a "very red light," and it reminds you of the intricate web that is the life of a city in a consumer culture.

[Brian R. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like Ferlinghetti, as much as Gary Snyder? Probably not. While some of his poems are a bit heavy handed in their capitalist critique, it’s the quiet moments where he stews on introspection lost in San Francisco, where the ability to be poetic or “practice” poetics is diminished through the gentrification of the city. The book, released in the 90s, has a depressingly accurate prediction for the city’s future.

[Avery Stempel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Got this little collection while visiting San Francisco for the first time. Visiting City Lights Bookstore was one of my only 'had to do' things while there. We stopped in at 11pm and there were about a dozen or so people browsing, talking, reading. I loved it. Ferlinghetti lays out perfect little vignettes of life in that city. Great stuff.

[Eddie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ferlinghetti wrote a collection of poems about the city that he lived in and loved. City Books helped shape the San Francisco beat scene and Ferlinghetti was there first hand fostering it. This collection brings togerher both bud thoughts and memories of his city. If you are a fan of beat poetry then you should check this out!

[Kalany Ballardin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sensível e cheio de vida: poemas de quem assiste à cidade que ama. Cenas cotidianas, o cable car, a névoa, a banda de marcha fúnebre, Chinatown, o bairro italiano: cada pedacinho rico de San Francisco trabalhado com carinho e tantos detalhes. Inesquecível 💘

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyed this tiny book with snippets of Ferlinghetti’s life and poetic work. Having been to SF a few times including a visit to CityLights book store makes it all the more enjoyable. Now I need to follow through and read more of his work!

[Janeane Marks · Rating 5 out of 5]

I recently made a pilgrimage to City Lights book store in San Francisco and picked up this book. I love Ferlinghetti’s poetry and his humor. Particularly poignant are the descriptions of the changes that have occurred due to gentrification of a once vibrant center for art and poetic life.

[Barbara · Rating 1 out of 5]

Meh. Self-indulgent and over-rated. (Don't tell Shannon or Ian!)

[Andrea Janov · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though I have read many of these poems before, this collection of San Francisco poems, reads more beautifully as a collective love letter to the city.

[Wren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Way before they were shitting in the streets!!!!1
Check it out!!!!!

[Matthew Stolte · Rating 4 out of 5]

many photos accompany the fistfuls of poems on the theme

[Leah Rachel von Essen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read in the Poet's Chair on the 2nd level of City Lights bookstore. I highly recommend it.