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Lawrence Ferlinghetti's

Constantly risking absurdity

Worksheet Two

Dr Keith Tankard
Knowledge4Africa.com
Updated: 9 November 2006
Picture of the poet
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ABOUT THE POET

Lawrence Ferlinghetti was born in New York in March 1919 but was soon sent to a relative in France because of his mother's being committed to a mental asylum. He would return to America at the age of five.

Although he began to write poetry at an early age, his teenage years saw him mixed up with street-gangs, and he soon found himself arrested for theft. He nevertheless completed high school and proceeded to the University of North Carolina where he obtained a degree.

During the war years he joined the United States navy where he served as an officer. On his discharge in 1945, he studied for a Master's Degree at Columbia University and then proceeded to the Sorbonne in Paris where he graduated with a Doctorate in Literature.

By 1952 he was back in America. He and a friend opened a bookstore in San Francisco, which they named City Lights, the title of a famous Charlie Chaplin movie. The bookstore became the centre for a movement of writers and artists which became known as the "Beat" group.

Ferlinghetti also established a publishing house which specialised in the publication of poetry. He quickly became known as one of the most influential of American poets and, in 1998, he was named as Poet Laureate of San Francisco.

Read the notes in the left column before answering the questions below:

1. What do you notice about the structure of this poem? (5)


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2. "paces his way
to the other side of the day
performing entrachats
and sleight-of-foot tricks
and other high theatrics
and all without mistaking
any thing
for what it may not be"
  • What is meant by "entrachats"? (2)

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  • Why does the poet speak of "sleight-of-foot tricks" rather than "sleight-of-hand tricks"? (4)

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  • Explain why it is that the poet may not mistake anything "for what it may not be". (4)(4)

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3. "For he's the super realist
who must perforce perceive
taut truth
before the taking of each stance or step
in his supposed advance
toward that still higher perch
where Beauty stands and waits
with gravity
to start her death-defying leap"
  • Comment on the poetic use of the words "taut truth". (4)

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  • Why is Beauty said to stand on "that still higher perch"? (4)

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  • Comment on the play on words in "stands and waits with gravity". (4)

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"And he
a little charleychaplin man
who may or may not catch
her fair eternal form
spreadeagled in the empty air
of existence"
  • Why is "charleychaplin" written as one word? (2)
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  • Why does the Ferlinghetti refer to the poet as "a little charleychaplin man"? (4)

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  • Why may the "little charleychaplin man" not "catch her fair eternal form spreadeagled in the empty air"? (4)
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