Lawrence Ferlinghetti was a member of the Beat Generation, who founded the City Lights bookstore which published a lot of early Beat poetry, including the first edition of Allen Ginsberg's Howl and Other Poems. As a poet, Ferlinghetti's collections include A Coney Island of the Mind and Pictures of the Gone World, as well as the poem "Constantly Risking Absurdity". "Constantly Risking Absurdity" uses imagery and eccentric formatting to compare the craft of poetry to acrobatics.
CONSTANTLY RISKING ABSURDITY
Constantly risking absurdity
and death
whenever he performs
above the heads
of his audience
the poet like an acrobat
climbs on rime
to a high wire of his own making
and balancing on eyebeams
above a sea of faces
paces his way
to the other side of day
performing entrechats
and sleight-of-foot tricks
and other high theatrics
and all without mistaking
any thing
for what it may not be
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
And he
a little charleychaplin man
who may or may not catch
her fair eternal form
spreadeagled in the empty air
of existence
Tomorrow: Pablo Neruda.
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