#  California’s Ferlinghetti: America’s Conscience

     Details    Abby Zimet   ![logo](https://www.citywatchla.com//templates/ja_teline_v/images/logo.png)         April 03 2017      [  ![](https://www.citywatchla.com/images/stories/Apr-2017/15027g.png)    ](https://www.citywatchla.com/los-angeles/12957-california-s-ferlinghetti-america-s-conscience)

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> GUEST WORDS--A belated 98th birthday to California’s Lawrence Ferlinghetti, indefatigable [poet,](http://www.commondreams.org/further/2017/04/02/%20https%3A/www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/lawrence-ferlinghetti) bookseller, anti-Fascist, First Amendment activist, environmentalist, publisher, painter, creator of community, patron saint of the Beat artists, Poet Laureate of San Francisco, living monument to the arts, "old-ass anarchist" and dazzlingly prescient speaker of truth whose City Lights bookstore has served as a beacon of enlightenment, creativity and resistance since the 1950s.
>
> Ferlinghetti inspired the 2009 [documentary](http://www.commondreams.org/further/2017/04/02/%20https%3A/www.fandor.com/films/ferlinghetti_a_rebirth_of_wonder) "A Rebirth of Wonder," he titled his 2013 collection of [poems](http://www.commondreams.org/further/2017/04/02/%20http%3A/www.interviewmagazine.com/culture/lawrence-ferlinghetti#_) "Time of Useful Consciousness" for the vital moment a pilot is aware of coming disaster and can still act, and he is working on a stream-of-consciousness [memoir](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/26/fashion/a-literary-bromance-now-in-its-sixth-decade.html?_r=0) he likes to [call ](http://www.npr.org/2015/06/11/410487944/at-96-poet-and-beat-publisher-lawrence-ferlinghetti-isnt-done-yet)"Portrait of the Artist As An Old Red."

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> In a riff on Gahlil Kibran's "Pity the Nation," Ferlinghetti [wrote h](https://www.democracynow.org/2007/9/3/legendary_beat_generation_bookseller_and_poet)is own searing [version ](https://wn.com/lawrence_ferlinghetti_pity_the_nation)ten years ago; it could be today. Likewise prophetically, he began his 2007 prose book, "Poetry as Insurgent Art," with, "I am signaling you through the flames." They continue to rise. May he, too.
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> *Pity the Nation*
>
> *“Pity the nation whose people are sheep,*
>  *and whose shepherds mislead them.*
>  *Pity the nation whose leaders are liars, whose sages are silenced,*
>  *and whose bigots haunt the airwaves.*
>  *Pity the nation that raises not its voice,*
>  *except to praise conquerors and acclaim the bully as hero*
>  *and aims to rule the world with force and by torture.*
>  *Pity the nation that knows no other language but its own*
>  *and no other culture but its own.*
>  *Pity the nation whose breath is money*
>  *and sleeps the sleep of the too well fed.*
>  *Pity the nation — oh, pity the people who allow their rights to erode*
>  *and their freedoms to be washed away.*
>  *My country, tears of thee, sweet land of liberty.”*
>
> ― Lawrence Ferlinghetti
>
> ***(Abby Zimet*** *has edited CD's *Further* column since 2008. A longtime, award-winning journalist, she moved to the Maine woods in the early 70s, where she spent a dozen years building a house, thinning the carrots, hauling too much water, experiencing true if ragged community, and writing. This perspective was posted originally at [Common Dreams.](http://commondreams.org))*
>
> *-cw*

  - [  Previous Article **California: The Republic of Climate** ](https://www.citywatchla.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12958:california-the-republic-of-climate&catid=312)
- [  Next Article **Follow the Money: Who Profits Rampant Age Discrimination?** ](https://www.citywatchla.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12956:follow-the-money-who-profits-rampant-age-discrimination&catid=312)
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