A Far Rockaway of the Heart: Poems (New Directions Paperbook) [Paperback]

Lawrence Ferlinghetti (Author)

Book Description

Series: New Directions Paperbook | Publication Date: September 17, 1998

A Far Rockaway of the Heart is Ferlinghetti's sequel to A Coney Island of the Mind, written forty years later, in what the author has called "a poetry seizure" that lasted more than a year.

A sequence of one hundred and one poems with recurrent themes, it includes various sections on love, art, music, history, and literature, as well as confrontations with major figures in the avant-garde before the arrival of the Beat generation. This edition now includes eighteen new poems from Ferlinghetti's "Pictures of the Gone World" which he publishes under his City Lights imprint. A self-styled "stand-up tragedian," Ferlinghetti has been called "the foremost chronicler of our times." If A Coney Island of the Mind was a generations vibrant eye-opener, A Far Rockaway of the Heart is a wake-up call for a new age.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

By beginning the first poem with the line, "Everything changes and nothing changes," Ferlinghetti invites the reader to visit old haunts, seek new stomping grounds, and hang out in his poetic world long enough to notice all that is altered and all that has stayed the same. A Far Rockaway of the Heart is a sequel to Ferlinghetti's 1950s Beat generation book, A Coney Island of the Mind, and reveals how he has weighted the scales this time more to heart-side than mind, offering a far more personalized narrative of familial, poetical, and social history. Although Ferlinghetti attempts to make political commentary and interject real-life lingo, it often appears, not witty or insightful, but obvious, not hip or in tune, but cliche, past tense. What seems startling is the subtle ways in which Ferlinghetti, too, has been influenced by the Confessionalists whose movement superseded Beat and struck a chord with Americans' fascination with self. Far Rockaway pays homage to the past while trying to record all the sameness and change of the century. For libraries with strong poetry collections. Janet St. John --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

"Love's not time's fool," said Shakespeare in a sonnet, but in Ferlinghetti's colorful portrait of the world, love and time magically fool each other until the end--just one more reason why the Beat should go on. -- Peter Kyper, "Rain Taxi"

A Far Rockaway of the Heart is further proof of Ferlinghetti's unique ability to be two poets at once-to be both radical and traditional, a firebrand and an academic. Even if it's not what you might expect from The Last Beat, Far Rockaway still seems like the best of both worlds. -- The Weekly Alibi 8-14 April 1998

All in all, Ferlinghetti has once again proven himself to be a sage with something to say about nearly every physical item in our universe, as well as art, music, history literature, geography, everyday life, human relationships in general, and this thing we call life. He makes us happy to be alive, sad about what we cannot change, and resigned that we don't, perhaps, have the power that we all had years ago to change the world. He is an old friend we would like to call up to ask if he has experienced this or that and what he thinks might be the best thing to do about it. And he would probably say it can't be helped, look out of the window of your soul and see. -- The Midwest Book Review

I love Ferlinghetti for the breathless quality of his work, often writing a whole page of poetry with no punctuation, only the spacing and indentation of lines denoting the breaks. He takes the reader on a joyful, angry trip and all that's required of us is to go with him, whether into exhortations on the pretensions of art or mediations on the nature of poetry. Savor this gem on being a poet: "and now in the night/in the general confligration/the white light still consuming us/small clowns/with our little tapers/held to the flame. -- Kliatt, March 1999

This collection of 101 numbered-that than titled-poems, written in what Ferlinghetti has termed a "poetry seizure" that lasted over a year, confirms that the author remains sharp, unrepentant, relevant, and fearless. His still-keen powers of observation guide us through the image-haunted century, from the sepia tintypes of his orphaned boyhood to the grainy footage of remote planets bounced back to us by the Hubble telescope. A Far Rockaway of The Heart also includes a nice bonus: 18 new poems from the latest City lights edition of Pictures Of The Gone World. All told, I seriously recommend it for Felinghettiphiles, Beat fans, and anyone seeking millennial closure from one who should know. -- Vice & Versa, October/November 1998

With ingratiating wit, Ferlingetti addresses the legacy of Pound, Eliot, Beckett, and others: his boyhood Latin teacher, busy with a "lovely housemaid," was one who resisted Prufrock's sea-girls "And off and on made faces at/ a copy of The Waste Land/ on a very high shelf." A fine if evanescent canzone shows the poet's serious, Poundian attention to matters of technique. Echoes visual and auricular resound from page to page, as Ferlinghetti at once deflates modernist pretensions and celebrates the achievement of his poetic mentors. Jazz players, chansonniers, painters, and sculptors come and go throughout these self-projecting pages. -- World Literature Today, Winter 1998

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Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: New Directions (September 17, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811213986
• ISBN-13: 978-0811213981
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #780,001 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Lawrence Ferlinghetti, poet and founder of City Lights Books, author of A Coney Island of the Mind and Pictures of the Gone World, among numerous other books, has been drawing from life since his student days in Paris where he frequented the Academie Julien and where he did his first oil painting.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars GREAT!, February 16, 2000

By 

Sierra - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Far Rockaway of the Heart (Hardcover)

A Far Rockaway of the Heart is Ferlinghetti's most recent anthology of poetry, and it's one of his best. With more than one hundred poems, it's also packed full of passion. I think that after many years of searching, Ferlinghetti finally found his true voice. These poems are sometimes funny, sometimes painful, but always beautifully created and full of life.

2 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Bohemian Poetry, March 10, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: A Far Rockaway of the Heart: Poems (New Directions Paperbook) (Paperback)

This is a great book for exploring the Bohemian poetry movement in the U.S. (namely, San Francisco). Contains the poem, "Autobiography," in which Ferlinghetti misidentifies Mount Rushmore as existing in North Dakota--but as I met him recently at a reading at the U of Minnesota, he was cool about it--knew exactly what I was talking about. . .so maybe he has learned a little since the time he wrote it!