"Constantly Risking Absurdity" by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Ferlinghetti was born March 24, 1919. He lived in New York.

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

 If a line is drawn right down the middle of this poem, it would look as if a balancing act was going on. Balancing between the riskiness of a poem; and not taking enough chances to where it falls flat, Ferlinghetti develops a poem discussing the way a poem is like an acrobatic act. Authors of poems have to decide when to take risks (“to start her death-defying leap”) and when not to. This poem describes how they must balance it out otherwise they “may or may not catch,” referring to the audience. Imagery is created where the audience can imagine a person up on a tight rope with their arms spread out far, stepping carefully one foot in front of each other. Parallelism creates an effect that the author is in a tight situation and risking and may fall and may succeed by the repetition the word “and.” The “super realist” is upon the tight rope, walking a thin line about to fall and if he/she makes it across the whole rope, they succeed. The audience sees the extended arms of the acrobat, and knows if one slips lower than the rest, it means that they will fall. Although the audience may not understand the poem (“spreadeagled in the empty air of existence”), the point for the authors is to take risks, but not to the point of absurdity. Every time authors write poems they risk “absurdity and death” where the audience is not such an easy crowd to please.