from Robert Graham's Anarchism Weblog via The Free
Lawrence Ferlinghetti – Anarchist Poet
Here’s to Lawrence Ferlinghetti (1919-2021), anarchist, poet, publisher of the Beat poets, and host of City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco, who died on February 22, 2021 at the grand old age of 101, a month shy of his 102nd birthday.
I Am Waiting
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His passing really just makes
His passing really just makes me reflect on the whole arc of the 50s/60s, and I can only conclude, somewhat breathlessly: the counterculture really begins and ends with Ferlinghetti. The Beat Movement, the wave of subversive publishing he helped usher in, the cache he lent to outsider ideas--he was the real deal. You could minus out his entire oeuvre of poems and he would still be staggeringly accomplished. But to have been both a seminal publisher AND an incredible poet? Most of us will not be so lucky to have a Midas touch twice over in our lives. Rest in Verse.
The beat generation helped
The beat generation helped lead me to anarchism and I know I'm not the only one. He will be well remembered.
He had some issues in regards to political endorsments
As this Bob Black piece addresses from 1984. http://www.inspiracy.com/black/abolition/ferlinghetti.html
Can't wait to talk about
Can't wait to talk about Black's issues when he dies.
Black may have personal issues
But he did not theoretically fuck and contradict himself like ol' nigga Lawrence did. This does not talk away from his positive poetic beat legacy.
And yet
I would much rather have had one conversation with Ferlinghetti than all the conversations I had with Black.
Frankly, that screed reads like Bob was having a tantrum because City Lights wouldn't publish one of his essays.
(BB has written great essays, but at some point it will become necessary to no longer cut him any slack for his odious personal behavior or take his word about the behavior of others.)
Ferli was probably a cool dude
with less personal failings then Bobzilla. That does not take away the fact that an anarchist supporting any marxoid vanguard statist capitalist power project is inexcusable.
Black has been turned down by a lot of publishers(there's a reason he found a home and got on with ancap loompanics) I doubt that's why he went after Ferlinghetti.
Alot of the odious personal behavior takes on BB are subjective calls. Black himself would admit to personal faults like not being able to keep friends. However some of the issues with him really are born of inner milieu moral faggery that I just don't acknowledge. Sicking the cops on the antisemitic dope fiend as revenge is not one of my problems. He pissed off a lot of people with provocative writing on leftist sacred cows that were and remain true. Personal failings do not obfuscate this fact. The next round of bohemians will likely be reading him and the other post leftists for note taking on what to do going forward into what looks to be a cybernetic bladerunneresque hellscape. Lawrence will have his place to, he just fucked up big time supporting the worst forms of leftism there was to support. You call that out just like you call out Prince Pete for backing WW1.
Yeah, but I never looked to
Yeah, but I never looked to Ferlinghetti for his views on foreign policy, or anarchy, for that matter. He ran a great bookstore and wrote some good poetry, and if he wasn't a perfect ideological anarchist, good to know but not quite the point.
As for Bob, I wasn't referring to the Hogshire thing, (or Bob's writing, for the most part), I agree too much energy has been spent on excoriating him for this when it's not warranted.
At some point knowing you have issues is no longer enough, you (one, we) need to work on our shit too.