Pictures of the Gone World (City Lights Pocket Poets Series)

"Pictures of the Gone World" had not been so fully praised as Ferlinghetti's next book of poems, "A Coney Island of the Mind". The only reason I can come up with is the extensive use of surrealist imagery and references to other poets, painters, sculptors etc., that the poems are full with. But in "Coney Island" there is a similar creative procedure--even the line order is "floating", as in "Pictures", so why is this book less known than "Coney Island"? It is probably not a matter of quality; probably more people feel attracted to read a book about Coney Island than one with a title which at first sight doesn't seem to say too much about its content. The poems incuded in "Pictures" are nevertheless great. This collection of verse is probably one of the most representative works during the Beat generation, along with Ginsberg's "Howl and other poems" (also published in City Lights Books) and Kerouac's "On the Road". Ferlinghetti succesfully intertwines surrealistic and dadaistic tendencies with oral speech, complex verbalization processes such as ekphrasis, which show the poet's skills at his best. This second edition brings us 18 new poems, which every Beat fan must get. Some of these new poems are quite remarkable, such as "Surfers are poets too", and there are some "addenda" to the previous ones. For example, no. 6 includes a whole new stanza, and words in no. 1 have been changed. This 1995 edition is also a collector's item, for it was published to celebrate 40 years of City Lights publishing.

I am embarassed to say that I picked this book up on my last visit to City Lights (several years ago) but I never actually read it. Other than for a piece or two in an anthology, I had never read Ferlinghetti, period. Having enjoyed the hospitality of the upstairs poetry room, that seemed somehow ill-mannered of me.Simply put, I liked this collection. The images and meanings are more subtle than a lot of poets with Beat roots. He can really paint a word picture to put you in the scene. You instantly soak up the nuances of the whole. Then maybe he'll nudge you, ever so slightly, into seeing the absurdity in it. Or perhaps he'll interject a reminder of your own mortality in a simular subtle way. It is appropriate that one of the poems deals with Edward Hopper. I get that Hopperesque quality of an observer in an existential urban landscape with much of the collection. About the only difference that I detected from the first 27 poems (written by 1955) and the 18 new ones (new in 1995) is a difference in rhythm. The older poems have much more of that classic coffee house beat- at least in my head. Of yes, he also uses the term "cyberpunk" in one of them.... But the word painting, and sense of subtle absurdity, is still right on the money.

This has to be my favorite volume of poetry to date (yet I am still young and have much to read). I found it "refreshing" and "light" if you will, yet at the same time taking on some real insight. My favorite poems in the volume include "Heaven"; which I take as almost a poetic criticism OF poetry, and "London"; which takes on issues of physical beauty. All the poems in here I enjoy immensely. Well worth your small investment. (Plus it has historic value being the first in the legendary Pocket Poets Series.