Starting from San Francisco by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Starting from San Francisco Reviews

• 
  Greg Bem

  Ugh, this is a hard book to read in 2021. A lot of the poetry generally feels underwhelming, and despite the free love and Feminism vibes, some of the poems are relatively intolerable with their white male gaze and subtle racist undertones (even if being sarcastic). Perhaps historically noteworthy but there are better, more mature collections by Ferlinghetti out there.
• 
  Josh Karaczewski

  I'm not a huge fan of poetry, but I love Ferlinghetti.
  
  My favorite poems in this collection are the titular piece, "Big Fat Hairy Vision of Evil," "The Great Chinese Dragon," and "Special Clearance Sale of Famous Masterpieces."
• 
  Mat

  This book could have easily been called, Another Side of Lawrence Ferlinghetti because in this collection we can behold a new previously unforeseen side to this great man - there is a stronger vein of cynicism creeping in and whispers of disillusionment with the ways of the world, which everyone goes through the older we get.
  Ferlinghetti set himself quite a mean task of having to come up with a strong follow-up book after his first two absolutely brilliant books of poetry - Pictures from the Gone World and the immortal Coney Island of the Mind (which inspired millions of people all over the world including Bob Dylan and Tom Waits).
  And yet he delivers, once again. Not quite as powerful as his first two forays into poetry, nevertheless Ferlinghetti adopts a wise tack in this volume by changing direction (remember when Kid A came out after OK Computer?), in the face of all expectations, and striking out for new territory. The poems Starting from San Francisco (which reads like a trip that Jack Kerouac could have made across country), One Thousand Fearful Words for Fidel Castro (full of cynicism and dry humour) and The Situation in the West, Followed by a Holy Proposal (a poem which reminded me of John Lennon's Imagine in which Ferlinghetti, long before Lennon, imagined a world without borders) are all very strong manifestoes and were among my favourites.
  I am starting to think that Ferlinghetti might be the best of the beat poets. The only people who come close in my opinion are Gregory Corso (when he is at his best) or Jack Micheline. Highly recommended. Looking forward to reading The Secret Meaning of Things next month.
• 
  Andrea

  I don't read enough poetry so I'm not the best judge still...some of the first few poems I found moving, like this
  

  Mining towns, once roaring
  now shrunk to the railhead,
  streetlights stoned with loneliness
  or lit with leftover sun
  they drank too much of during the day.... (Starting from San Francisco)

  
  And and the rest I enjoyed in their rantiness and laughter
  

  I didn't get much sleep last night
  thinking about underwear
  Have you ever stopped to consider
  underwear in the abstract
  When you really dig into it
  some shocking problems are raised (underwear)

  
  and this
  

  And the great Chinese dragon has eaten a hundred humans and their legs pop out of his underside and are his walking legs which are not mentioned in the official printed program in which he is written up as the Great Golden Dragon made in Hong Kong to the specifications of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce... (The Great Chinese Dragon)

  
  
• 
  Jan

  I'm not the hugest fan of the Beats, though my poetry mentor Julia Vinograd and my poetry publisher Bruce Isaacson admire them greatly and have done their best to educate me about them. The Beats all seem to need better self-editing to me, and they're usually a bit testosterone-soaked for my taste. Still, these poems of Ferlinghetti's have both wit and reach. The one about the Chinese dragon was purely wonderful. A good night's read, and the kind of book that makes you want to sit down and write. Thank you to my friend, the poet and writer Andre Levi, for leaving this book to me.
• 
  Jimmy

  There was a time when I loved the poetry of Lawrence Ferlinghetti and all the beat poets. But it's a bit outdated now. This book seems more of a historical look at a different time that no longer holds up to scrutiny.
• 
  Max Nemtsov

  Более гимнические и мантрические тексты, скорее предназначенные для чтения вслух с эстрады. Несмотря на заявления на обложке, лирики тут меньше — скорее политика и манифесты. Но все равно.
• 
  J.C.

  Still strong work here, even though it's a little less coherent of a collection as those i have previous read. I love the fact that the poem titles are written in Ferlinghetti's style. I also really appreciated the addition of "Berlin", which was a very solid poem. His humor is always appreciated and unique as well, as I was hoping I'd find here from my previous readings of his work. Overall, even with the lesser quality work here, I enjoyed reading these poems.
• 
  Maughn Gregory

  This little book is a time capsule from the USA just before and just after I was born. I loved it for that as much as for it's Beat sensibility: the paen to "The Great Chinese Dragon," the "Dinner to Promote the Impeachment of President Eisenhower," and the final, "Holy Proposal" of "transcopulation".
• 
  Rod

  The second volume in my Ferlinghetti read-everything-by-him-on-my-shelf read-a-thon memorial. It hit me while reading this that many of his poems are lists, litanies, and/or laments. They can sometimes drag a little, but, oh, when they work...One of my favorites here is "Tentative Description of a Dinner to Promote the Impeachment of President Eisenhower." Yep.
• 
  Mark Thomas

  Mildly interesting collection of poems.
  
  Probably most interesting to read Ferlinghetti burying Fidel Castro about 60 years prematurely.
• 
  Matt

  read this to my girlfriend,
  “overpopulation” was a rager.
• 
  Corey

  I sometimes think, at his best, he was the best of the beat poets. I'm thinking that right now.
• 
  Greg

  "Proto-Leaf" *
  
  by Walt Whitman (Leaves of Grass, 1860 edition)
  
  2
  
  Victory, union, faith, identity, time,
  The indissoluble compacts, riches, mystery,
  Eternal progress, the kosmos, and the modern reports.
  
  This then is life,
  Here is what has come to the surface after so many throes and convulsions.
  
  How curious! how real!
  Underfoot the divine soil, overhead the sun.
  See revolving the globe,
  The ancestor-contintents away group'd together,
  The present and future continents north and south, with the isthmus between.
  
  See, vast trackless spaces
  As in a dream they change, they swiftly fill,
  Countless masses debouch upon them,
  They are now cover'd with the for most people, arts, institutions, known.
  
  See, projected through time,
  For me an audience interminable.
  
  With firm and regular step they wend, they never stop,
  Successions of men, Americanos, a hundred millions,
  One generation playing its part and passing on,
  Another generation playing its part and passing on in its turn,
  With faces turn'd sideways or backward towards me to listen,
  With eyes retrospective towards me.
  
  
  * The title,"Proto-Leaf," Whitman later changed to "Starting from Paumanok" -- the title from which Ferlinghetti took his inspiration for 'Starting From San Francisco.'
  
  
  
  
• 
  Michael P.

  What a great idea for a book of poetry, go to different parts of the world and write poems, starting and ending in your home town. Unfortunately, the execution is wanting.
  
  Shallow people say that many of the world's problems would be solved if only people had more sex, not stopping to think that some of the people doing the world the most harm get all the sex anybody could want. Power does that. The past poem in the collection takes the first part of that as its premise, so while the poem itself is wonderfully expressed, it is shallow, shallow, shallow. The poem telling people not to be so hard on Fidel Castro is, at best, naive from this remove. One wonders if Ferlinghetti had been reading Whitman's worst poems before writing this book. Remember Whitman's lists of things? A few of these poems read that way. Beware of those with repetitions such as "As I approach" (Euphoria), "Evil evil evil evil" (Big Fat Harry Vision of Evil), "is" (Flying Out of It), and "Hidden door" (Hidden Door). They are not amongst Ferlinghetti's best work, and by the way, these are consecutive peoms, pp. 11-23.
  
  A very few are "Coney Island" level wonderful, and some that are less than wonderful have some wonderful writing. Worth reading, but it is OK to skip a few poems.
• 
  Jerry Oliver

  To think he started some of these poems the year before I was born and that he still alive and vibrant appearing recently to read at his City Lights bookstore is amazing. These poems mean so much to me at this period of time in my life. These poems paint a picture of the world I was born into and the city I moved to twenty years after the publication of this collection.
• 
  A

  My father knew that Lawrence Ferlinghetti and I share a birthday. And so he went to City Lights and asked Ferlinghetti if he would autograph a copy of this book for me. That was back in the 1960s. This gesture inextricably tied my father and me to poetry, and to City Lights Bookstore.
• 
  Angela Skeie

  Modern anglosaxon ladies
  must have huge guilt complexes
  always washing and washing and washing
  ...
  Do not go naked into that good night
  
  From Underware, or UNDERWARE
  
• 
  Ben

  Not bad, nor necessarily memorable or moving, the latter of which are true for "Coney Island of the Mind."
• 
  GK Stritch

  poem "Lawrence and Me"
  
  
  http://www.beatdom.com/?p=3171
• 
  Cooper Renner

  Not as "classic" as Coney Island but still sly, funny, heartfelt and better than at least 99% of what's been published this year.
• 
  Audrey

  is it bad to think things like
  nothing new
  nothing i havent seen before
  
  eh, eh