Constantly Risking Absurdity (#15)
BY LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI
 
Constantly risking absurdity
                                             and death
            whenever he performs
                                        above the heads
                                                            of his audience
   the poet like an acrobat
                                 climbs on rime
                                          to a high wire of his own making
and balancing on eyebeams
                                     above a sea of faces
             paces his way
                               to the other side of day
    performing entrechats
                               and sleight-of-foot tricks
and other high theatrics
                               and all without mistaking
                     any thing
                               for what it may not be
 
       For he's the super realist
                                     who must perforce perceive
                   taut truth
                                 before the taking of each stance or step
in his supposed advance
                                  toward that still higher perch
where Beauty stands and waits
                                     with gravity
                                                to start her death-defying leap
 
      And he
             a little charleychaplin man
                                           who may or may not catch
               her fair eternal form
                                     spreadeagled in the empty air
                  of existence


 
Hello there. Corinna Laughlin here with the Poem of the Week.
 
This week, we’re reading a poem by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Scott Webster will read “Constantly Risking Absurdity,” and then I’ll be back with some brief commentary.
 
Thank you, Scott.
 
Obviously, this poem by Lawrence Ferlinghetti is not a religious poem. But it’s one of my favorite poems about poetry, and since we’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on poems, it seems like a good fit for our series.
 
Lawrence Ferlinghetti was born in 1919. He was famous as a poet, a publisher of poetry, and a bookseller—he was the cofounder of the famous City Lights bookshop in San Francisco. Ferlinghetti is often considered one of the “Beat” poets, though he always insisted he was not a Beat himself. Nevertheless, as the publisher of Allan Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, among others, he was certainly part of the movement. Ferlinghetti died earlier this year at the age of 101.
 
In this poem from Ferlinghetti’s most famous collection, Coney Island of the Mind, Ferlinghetti is writing about the art of poetry itself. The poem is an extended metaphor, comparing the poet to a circus performer. It’s a surprising move, a mix of popular culture with high art—which is exactly his point. Ferlinghetti’s mantra was that “art should be accessible to all people, not just a handful of highly educated intellectuals,” and that “truth is not the secret of a few.”
 
That being said, this is quite a sophisticated poem. “Constantly risking absurdity / and death / whenever he performs / above the heads / of his audience / the poet like an acrobat / climbs on rime / to a high wire of his own making.” Just as the acrobat takes risks every time he steps on the high wire, so does the poet. I love the juxtaposition of “absurdity / and death.” If the acrobat makes a mistake, he might look very silly – or he might die. For Ferlinghetti, the stakes are high for the poet as well – “absurdity / and death.”
 
Ferlinghetti cleverly uses poetic wordplay, as he describes the poet climbing “on rime,” “balancing on eyebeams / above a sea of faces,” performing “sleight-of-foot tricks / and other high theatrics.” In poetry, there is art, performance, and play. And, as Ferlinghetti suggests here, there is also an element of deception—“sleight-of-foot tricks.” (“Foot,” of course, is a poetic term, used in counting the stressed and unstressed syllables of a poem.) Poetry is, in a way, a magic trick—a game.
 
But it is a serious game. As Ferlinghetti says, the poet dances on the high wire, but “all without mistaking / any thing / for what it may not be.” The poet may play “tricks,” but never loses sight of things as they really are. The acrobat may seem to be playing around, improvising, but, of course, every move is choreographed. In the same way, the poet is “the super realist / who must perforce perceive / taut truth / before the taking of each stance or step.” We think of poets as dreamy types, but Ferlinghetti rejects that idea. The poet is the “realist,” and everything he does comes from his clear-sighted recognition of “taut truth.”
 
But there’s more. “Taut truth” is the sure way “toward that still higher perch / where Beauty stands and waits / with gravity / to start her death-defying leap.” This acrobatic performance is not a solo act; the poet’s task is to catch Beauty.
 
Ferlinghetti’s poem ends, quite literally, in mid-air, with the poet reaching out to catch the “fair eternal form” of Beauty, which he “may or may not” do. The end of the poem brings us back to the opening line: “Constantly risking absurdity.” We see the poet, an absurd figure, “a little charleychaplin man,” and we’re unsure whether he will catch Beauty, or land in absurdity.
 
It seems as though Beauty also risks absurdity, in a way – we see her “spreadeagled in the empty air / of existence,” obviously trusting and hoping that the poet will catch her—meeting him halfway.
 
To be a poet, to write a poem, is to take a risk—the risk of falling flat, the risk of absurdity. But Ferlinghetti’s poem also captures the immense possibility of poetry. As we’ve seen with so many of the poems we’ve looked at in this series, when the poet makes that connection and catches Beauty, we get a glimpse of something eternal—something we would otherwise have missed—and the results are amazing.