Lawrence Ferlinghetti, A Coney Island of the Mind

Gina Wisker (University of Brighton)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Christopher Hugh Gair (University of Glasgow), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Kerry Myler (Newman University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1958

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Poem collection

Resources

Ferlinghetti's second book, A Coney Island Of The Mind was published in 1958. The collection contains “In Goya's Greatest Scenes” which has held a special place in the hearts and minds of a new reading generation:

In Goya's greatest scenes we seem to see
the people of the world
exactly as the moment when
they first attained the title of
'suffering humanity'

The poem opens with these lines and then sets off to explore the characteristics of suffering humanity caught by the “imagination of disaster”: “they are so bloody real/it is as if they really still existed”. The poem then shifts directly to the contemporary world in which we find the same people, albeit in a …

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1209 words

Citation: Wisker, Gina. "A Coney Island of the Mind". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 21 March 2002 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=7233, accessed 27 November 2024.]

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