Re: Ferlinghetti

Emily Friedman (bananafish_9@yahoo.com)
Tue, 10 Nov 1998 19:44:23 -0800 (PST)

---J J R <jrovira@juno.com> wrote:
>
> Well, I had the privilege of hearing him speak at Rollins College in
> Winter Park, FL last night.  Even got to shake his hand :)  He was in
> Orlando to do a media thing about Kerouac's house over here, and
read a
> couple poems he'd written about Kerouac along with some of his other
> work.  He said Kerouac was the most miserable when he was the most
> successful, so he said the house we dedicated over here was a place
> Kerouac was miserable in--he wrote Dharma Bums there.  
> 
> Ferlinghetti was an absolute riot.  I just didn't expect to laugh as
much
> as I did during the reading.  I had only read Pictures of the Gone
World
> and caught some of the humor, but hearing him read it made the poems
> sound like a string of one-liners--like a Woody Allen short story or
> something--especially when you take his NY Jewish accent into account.
> 
> He said Beat poetry was primarily performance poetry and told a story
> about Ginsberg stripping during a reading in LA, I think, in the
1950s. 
> He called himself the "straight brother" of the beat movement, and
told a
> story about one of his publishers having to testify that before a
> subcommittee that he (LF) was not a communist.
> 
> The auditorium was, well, BEYOND standing room only.  The aisles were
> filled up with people from the back all the way down to the stage.  LF
> asked people crowded around the front door to come in and sit on the
> stage with him.  
> 
> At the same time, some people told me that personally--person to
person,
> that is--he came across pretty cold.  I left the reception afterwards
> just as he was arriving so I wasn't able to find out for myself.
> 
> But he sure was a riot behind the podium :)
> 
> Jim       
> 
I have never heard of Ferlinghetti, what relationship did he have with
Kerouac and Ginsberg?
-Liz Friedman
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