{"id":210,"date":"2021-02-24T10:07:47","date_gmt":"2021-02-24T10:07:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimclarke.net\/?p=210"},"modified":"2021-02-24T10:09:56","modified_gmt":"2021-02-24T10:09:56","slug":"canticle-for-lawrence-ferlinghetti","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimclarke.net\/index.php\/2021\/02\/24\/canticle-for-lawrence-ferlinghetti\/","title":{"rendered":"Canticle for Lawrence Ferlinghetti"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I met him once, at City Lights, of course. He was a stone cold gentleman. He let me go smoke weed on the roof of the store, because of course he did, and he gave me a book they’d published of the same poem, entitled ‘Irish’ translated into English from the German by 30 different poets. Rest in power, Lawrence.<\/em>
Alas WordPress won’t accommodate the line lengths and spacing of the original. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There is a bookshop in the memory of America
A shop of books and everyone’s uncle
singing Woodie Guthrie
and speaking poems from memory
in a bookshop in the memoryof America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among everyone’s favourite places,
in the secret speakeasies
with the best cocktails,
over dumplings at the family-run restaurant
by California and Grant,
swanking at the Tonga Room,
dancing at the party in Cole Valley Heights
that everyone called the Haight, stoned, laughing,
is a private place, a lovesong, a melody
of verse, all the bookpages turning,
those dangerous books about fucking
in the memory of America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a private place
belonging to everyone
in the memory of America,
everyone’s adopted granddad
might hand you a book, say
\u201cRead this\u201d and you would,
or quote Yeats,
or clasp your hand,
cold but warm, thank
you for coming, thank you for listening,
thank you for being there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who now will remember the poems
for us, who will be the memory of America,
a century long, now you’ve joined i genitori perduti<\/em>,
Allen,
Bill,
Jack,
as the world sighs by
cowering
like frightened lost kids on a road none of us recognise any longer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I met him once, at City Lights, of course. He was a stone cold gentleman. He let me go smoke weed on the roof of the store, because of course he did, and he gave me a book they’d published of the same poem, entitled ‘Irish’ translated into English from the German by 30 different … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Canticle for Lawrence Ferlinghetti”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[121,120,122,123],"class_list":["post-210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","tag-beats","tag-city-lights","tag-ferlinghetti","tag-san-francisco"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcnZAt-3o","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimclarke.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimclarke.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimclarke.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimclarke.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimclarke.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jimclarke.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":213,"href":"https:\/\/jimclarke.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210\/revisions\/213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimclarke.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimclarke.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimclarke.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}