Lawrence Ferlinghetti

In the novella San Francisco Poems by Ferlinghetti, I found that most of his works, while fondly reminiscent in nature, do in fact focus on political and social issues such as class separation and the cultural partitioning in terms of districts. Golden Gate Park in particular certainly carries with it some sort of cultural baggage especially with the state it is in today in comparison to the sixties and seventies. Ferlinghetti's poems span over a long enough period of time to have a more encompassed perception of San Francisco's drastic social changes. Although he tended to focus on North Beach more than any other district, the slow digression of San Fransisco's revolutionary culture is apparent in many works like the Poetic City That Was, or the Artist in which Ferlinghetti clearly recognizes the routines that destroyed so many artistic minds. Materialism for example as it is in relation to the work Two Scavengers in a Truck, Two Beautiful People in a Mercedes is a more obvious yet still detrimental aspect of modern thought that has definitely played a role in the lack of artistic recognition.

The reason that I enjoy the poems Dog and A North Beach Scene so thoroughly is because of how much referential imagery there is throughout both. If Ferlinghetti isn't painting a picture of Washington Square Park in North Beach, then he is connecting the character's perception to some record label icon like that of Victor Records. By focusing on the homeless population in the city, he again relates his prose to the disintegrating subculture in San Francisco, and how it's artistic base has transformed into one of sloth, decay, and addiction. This is not in every case of course, but in that way Ferlinghetti and Brautigan share many characteristics, not to mention their similar interest in the Italian district in San Francisco and Washington Square Park in particular. Wherever Ferlinghetti would be blunt and straightforward with his imagery, Brautigan would weigh the same images down with intense metaphors to trout fishing scenes and drunken winos stumbling into districts for sex. The statue in Washington Square is an example of an object relevant in both artist's work.