On Ferlinghettis Constantly Risking Absurdity - Essay Example

Ferlinghetti compares a poem to a “little Charley Chaplin man,” who “may or may not catch,” meaning that a poem has to risk losing its audience, risk falling into the “empty existence of air” in order to achieve any kind of greatness, for if the poem risks nothing it also achieves nothing, no beauty, and no artistry.

Ferlinghetti makes this point a bit ironically, as it is intended to be a bit of a jab at the Beat poets, poets who, to Ferlinghetti’s mind, risk nothing in their poetry, instead choosing to hide behind a mask of postmodern cynicism and despair. The Beat poets, in Ferlinghetti’s opinion, do not walk the rope at all, but instead play their gullible audience, capitalizing on an immature dedication to anarchy and disillusionment with a government that would draft Americans and sends them to a war that they did not believe in.

In “Constantly risking absurdity,” we see Ferlinghetti using not only theme and imagery to unite the subjects of poetry and high wire acts, but also the form. The words and lines look as if they are constantly shifting, just like a tight-rope walker must constantly change his pacing in order to keep his balance, or just as the poet must do to “perceive / taut truth.” The poet has to risk leaps in form as well as leaps in theme and subject to create a work of art. There is no other way. The poet must, as Ferlinghetti claims, constantly risk absurdity. In some ways, this is a most frightening prospect. As humans, we all fear looking foolish, and the easiest way to look foolish, to lose respect and credibility, is to engage in the absurd, which of course, is exactly what Ferlinghetti is proposing.

The poem is defined by its audience. More than any other kind of literature, the poem is dependent on the reader. The reader must engage in the poem not only thematically but also as a form on the page and as a lyric entity. The poem requires engagement and because it requires such an investment in the reader, it also poses the greatest risk. The reader must trust the poet to lead her to a kind of conclusion, no matter how complex or circuitous a route the poet chooses to take. If the reader becomes lost, the trust is betrayed and the reader falls away, labeling the poem as “absurd” and forever dismissing it, much to the poet’s dismay. Poets are brave voyagers, entering into a world where they face obscurity and alienation and discouragement but write their poems anyway, despite the potential disaster. It is with these thoughts of the potential loss of readers, the potential alienation of the audience, that a poet must sit down and begin to write and with each word, risk absurdity.