How to Paint Sunlight: New Poems [Hardcover]

Lawrence Ferlinghetti (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 2001

How to Paint Sunlight, a new collection of poems by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, is graced with a short introduction by the poet in which he says, "All I ever wanted to do was paint light on the walls of life." For more than fifty years Ferlinghetti has been doing just that—illuminating both the everyday and the unusual, all the while keeping true to his original dictum of speaking in a way accessible to everyone. He has been, and remains "one of our ageless radicals and true bards" (Booklist).

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"All I ever wanted was to paint light on the walls of life," Ferlinghetti writes in a foreword "these poems are another attempt to do it." A late-career miscellany divided into four sections, this eighth collection draws some of life's great polarities light and dark, tragedy and comedy, ecstasy and despair into the quotidian whorl of this beloved West Coast-transplant poet. In the eponymous first section, Ferlinghetti combines a familiar blend of direct talk and belief in poetic enlightenment to give voice to the "Big Sur Light" ("The moon/ After much reflection says/ Sun is God") and "White Dreams," and to give "Instructions to Painters and Poets": "stand back astonished." The "New York, New York" section features a "Manhattan Mama" and "Overheard Conversations," and makes stops in Europe and China before heading "Into the Interior," the last and best section. There, a series of three poems dealing with Allen Ginsberg's death takes us from the deflectively wry news of his imminent departure ("Death the dark lover/ is going down on him") to a bedside visitation by the poet's released spirit and beyond: "Allen died 49 nights ago, and in Bixby Canyon now the white misshapen moon sailed listing through the sky...." The intentionally over-simple rhymes ("What is light What is air What is life so passing fair?"), puns (as when he addresses his work to "the good burghers eating burgers") and long-winded poetic preaching of the earlier sections may not quite come off, but loss of youth and life and their attendant nostalgias come through, "made of love and light and dung/ some great immortal song." (Apr.) Forecast: Fans of A Coney Island of the Mind and A Far Rockaway of the Heart will find this book repetitive and diffuse, but Ferlinghetti has earned it. And since he does not overpublish, fans old and new will pick it up if it is placed in a demographically strategic spot.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Review

...lovely, floating, punctuation-less poems... -- San Francisco Chronicle, Carmella Ciuraru, 10 June 2001

Allen Ginsberg Dying
Allen Still
Allen This Instant
And Lo
Apollinaire In America
Appearances Of The Angel In Ohio
Are There Not Still Firelies
Between Two Cities
Big Sur Light
Blind Poet
Blood Of The Bag Lady
The Changing Light
Dictionaries Of Light
Dirty Tongue
Don't Cry For Me Indiana
Drinking French Wine In Middle America
First, The News
The Freights
Instructions To Painters & Poets
Into The Interior
Journal Notes Turning Into A Poem
Library Scene, Manhattan
The Light Of Birds
Manhattan Mama
Moored
Mouth
Natural History
Overheard Conversations
The Scream Heard Around The World
Spring About To Happen
Surreal Migrations
A Tourist Of Revolutions
White Dreams
Yachts In Sun
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

Ferlinghetti aficionados will delight in this volume. -- Willamette Weekly, Carlos Reyes, July 2001

Varied and appealing. -- Kirkus Reviews, 1 March 2001

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 128 pages
• Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation; First Edition edition (June 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 081121463X
• ISBN-13: 978-0811214636
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #810,812 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:

4.0 out of 5 stars He's Still Got It!, May 28, 2001

By 

Geoffrey Cain (Marina, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: How to Paint Sunlight: New Poems (Hardcover)

This book is a real delight to anyone who enjoys poetry. Ferlinghetti still has it and has it in spades. His poems do something that most poets have forgotten how to do: COMMUNICATE! He is the poet for Everyman and the Everyman of poets. In an age of poetry slams and unintelligable linguistic pirouettes from Europe, Ferlighetti stands nearly alone. The poetry still has its political edge, there are lines in the section on Big Sur that will go into the thin volume that should be made on the poetry and prose that really describe the Big Sur experience. And finally, the last section, Into The Interior, where the poet turns the unflinching light of honesty on the death of Allen Ginsburg, and himself, is a simple, quiet apotheosis. Read this book.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Demonstrates and documents a true literary master, September 6, 2001

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: How to Paint Sunlight: New Poems (Hardcover)

Lawrence Ferlinghetti is one of the best and widely read of America's 20th century poets, who has been awarded numerous citations, awards, and recognitions for his work. How To Paint Sunlight: New Poems showcases for his legions of fans a new compendium of his work that demonstrates and documents a true literary master. Moored: A boat moored/In the deep shade/under a weeping willow/in the bend of a river//As the light fades/so does the boat/with its willow/with its river//Only memory remains/of the lovers/in the bottom of the boat/moored to each other//They too/Gone on.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting in parts,other times a disappointment, April 26, 2001

By 

Scott (The Cult of Isis) - See all my reviews

This review is from: How to Paint Sunlight: New Poems (Hardcover)

I just picked up this book today,after eagerly awaiting it. It is worth reading, but if you are a fan of his older material ("Her","European Poems & Transitions","Coney Island of the Mind",etc. etc.) it is somewhat of a disappointment. Also,a few of these poems aren't all that 'new' per se. There is one where he wrote, "Ginsberg died 49 nights ago" and well, Ginsberg has been dead for four years now. There are a few memorable,beautifully lyrical lines..."Your heart in a flower pales the dawn" from, 'First, the News'. Other poems are funny in parts..."You don't get in free, & there's no chicken soup, and this ain't no Frank O'Hara lunch poem". Sadly though, for the most part this book is somewhat unmemorable.