1) Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Our "San Francisco Poems" by Fernlinghetti is a short anthology of his works. After the introductory pages where we establish Fernlinghetti as San Francisco's Poet Laureate, we are confronted by Ferlinghetti in his 'Challenges to Young Poets.' His strongest criticisms of poetry are reflected on p30, where he says:

"Cultivate dissidence and critical thinking.
"First thought, best thought" may not make
for the greatest poetry. First thought may be
worst thought.

What's on your mind? What do you have in
mind? Open your mouth and stop mumbling.

Don't be so open-minded that your brains fall
out.

Question everything and everyone. Be sub-
versive, constantly questioning reality and
the status quo.

Be a poet, not a huckster. Don't cater, don't
pander, especially not to possible audiences,
readers, editors, or publishers."

This is a powerful challenge! He demands poets be counter-culture, dissenters of the popular, and independent of support. This is like the classic teenage ideal where the teenage poet believes he can change the world without ever being popular or selling-out. It's the anti sell-out idea. Don't sell out to main-stream ideas, don't sell out to business.

While "San Francisco Poems" is merely an anthology of his poems, I don't feel he's met his own challenge in most of his own poetry. Most of it is sensory and sentimental - describing things he believes are beautiful and interesting. Most of it is shallow in it's prettiness.
Like, right after the 'Challenge to Young Poets' when he has 'A North Beach Scene.' This and many of his poems are rather Frost-like in that they are quaint and touchy-feely but they have no edge.

The next two poems have some subversive elements in them. He gives them a bit more edge, but not all the way as to be the kind of extreme edge that he calls for in his "Challenge."

He makes a clever juxtaposition in 'They Were Putting Up a Statue..." where he contrasts the classic image of St. Francis in nature with birds joining him on his head and outstretched arms with the city scene where they raise a statue of the Saint in a totally birdless square. Then, with the idea that this San Francisco is rather un-Francis-like, we have a unique touch of San Francisco city culture at the end of the poem where he vaguely mentions that perhaps a nude blond girl with a birds nest is walking among people watching the statue-raising. Is this something that really happened/happens? Is this girl real or is she what he envisions should be there during this statue-raising? The idea of this naked virgin with a bird's nest is a rather pagan image to have around St. Francis, but maybe St. Francis' nature-worship is a rather pagan concept.

With 'Dog' he gets existential, observing the world through the eyes of a dog who is cognizant of San Francisco's political atmosphere. That sounds odd, but he makes it pretty enough so that it's very pallateable. The dog's commentary becomes edgy when he disregards the power of the cops. The dog sees cops as another animal, a predator, tougher to eat and stringier than easy prey, such as a tender cow. Ferlinghetti parallels the dog with the young man, who sees the world as though he is uncorrupted, as though he sees it in a more true and unjaded way. The dog is "touching and tasting and testing everything / investigating everything / without benefit of perjury / a real realist." It's his ideal that he expects from young poets. But, he jabs at this teenage, youthful "purity of mind" in his last image where he metaphorically displays the dog as a product of his cultutre. The dog was an observer in most of the poem and then, he becomes the image of the big-label. The proverbial sell-out.