What is Constantly Risking Absurdity About and Why Should I Care? But hey-at least Ferlinghetti's up to the task.

In order to do that, the poet, according to Ferlinghetti, must be an acrobat of sorts, swinging wildly to and fro, entertaining us common folk while also trying to say something real, without sounding like a stuffy professor in a stuffy tweed coat. It's all about the Artist trying to get his hands on Beauty and Truth without sounding totally crazy and out of touch to the rest of us. When we read Ferlinghetti's poem, 'Constantly Risking Absurdity,' first published in 1958, we start to get the full complexity of this seemingly small but ultimately enormous problem (yes, even we at Shmoop can't keep away from those poetic contradictions). How does one go about such a feat without sounding like a poseur hypocrite and falling into those pesky traps of five-dollar words and difficult-to-digest philosophies? It gets a little tricky though when you're a poet writing street poetry and you suddenly feel compelled to write something about Art with a capital A and Beauty with a capital B. As one critic noted, 'his writing sings, with the sad and comic music of the streets' ( source). But he prefers the kind of writing that says something about real experience rather than some fancy definition of reality that proves just how clever those academics are (or are not).Īnd how does Ferlinghetti get into this real experience? By writing poetry that sounds something like real talk, you know, the kind of stuff you'd hear in the grocery store, the coffee shop, or the corner bar. Now, that's not to say he doesn't indulge in a fancy word now and then. He's definitely of this 'tell it like it is' mindset. We were just channeling one of our faves: Lawrence Ferlinghetti. It's time to say it like it is, rather than twist our moustaches while patting each other on the back for coming up with another obscure idea that no one can understand anyway.

Constantly Risking Absurdity IntroductionĮnough with the five-dollar words only academics can understand.

A coney island of the mind