Background Image
...
For Even Bad Poetry Has Relevance For What It Does Not Say For What It Leaves Out.
-Lawrence Ferlinghetti
...
Please Wait....
Translating....

For Even Bad Poetry

Lawrence Ferlinghetti
...
For Even Bad Poetry Has Relevance For What It Does Not Say For What It Leaves Out.

Understanding the Quote: "for even bad poetry has relevance for what it does not say..."

This quote by Lawrence Ferlinghetti reflects deeply on the theme of doe. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Doe, Relevance, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Lawrence Ferlinghetti interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Lawrence Ferlinghetti is celebrated for insightful thoughts on doe and relevance. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

Views: 27741
Topic
Doe
Relevance
More From Lawrence Ferlinghetti
The Poet Like An Acrobat Climbs On Rime To A High Wire Of His Own Making.
Wire
Rhyming
Poet
I Didn’t Know That Painters And Writers Retired. They’re Like Soldiers – They Just Fade Away.
Inspirational
Retirement
Soldier
Anyone Who Saw Nagasaki Would Suddenly Realize That They'd Been Kept In The Dark By The United States Government As To What Atomic Bombs Can Do.
Dark
Government
Bombs
The State Of The World Calls Out For Poetry To Save It.
World
States
I Think If There's A Great Depression There Might Be Some Hope.
Depression
Thinking
Might
We'd Like To Just Write Nothing But Lyric Poetry. The Trouble Is, The Individual Is Going Along Intent On His Own Personal Gratifications And Love Affairs And Financial Affairs And Everything Else. But Loping Alongside Him Is This Fascist Lout Who Keeps Trying To Take Over. And If You Keep Ignoring Him, He Gets Bigger And Bigger, So Every Once In A While The Free Individual Has To Turn Away From His Private Pursuits And Give This Fascist Lout A Few Clouts, And Beat Him Down To Size.
Writing
Lyric Poetry
Giving
Western Civilization Has Been In A State Of Decline Since The Edwardian Age, Say 1910. That Was The Height Of Greco-roman European Civilization. Then There Was The First World War. That Was The Beginning Of The End. That Civilization Has Been In A Decline Ever Since. But From The American Triumphalist Point Of View Our Wonderful Electronic Revolution Is Really The Forefront Of An Ongoing Wonderful Civilization.
War
Age
World
For Even Bad Poetry Has Relevance For What It Does Not Say For What It Leaves Out.
Doe
Relevance
Poets, Come Out Of Your Closets, Open Your Windows, Open Your Doors, You Have Been Holed Up Too Long In Your Closed Worlds... Poetry Should Transport The Public/to Higher Places/than Other Wheels Can Carry It.
Doors
Long
World
The Paintings May Communicate Even Better Because People Are Lazy And They Can Look At A Painting With Less Effort Than They Can Read A Poem.
People
Effort
Lazy
The Art Has To Make It On Its Own, Without Explanations, And It’s The Same For Poetry. If The Poem Or The Painting Has To Be Explained, Then It’s A Failure In Communication.
Art
Communication
Painting
I Am Awaiting Perpetually And Forever A Renaissance Of Wonder
Forever
Renaissance
Wonder
It's Much Easier To Consume The Visual Image Than To Read Something.
Easier
Visuals
Visual Images
To Say One Is Revolutionary Is A Little Like Saying One Is A Zen Buddhist - If You Say You Are, You Probably Aren't.
Buddhist
Littles
Revolutionary
If You're Too Open-minded; Your Brains Will Fall Out.
Funny
Sarcastic
Witty
The World Is A Beautiful Place To Be Born Into If You Don't Mind Some People Dying All The Time Or Maybe Only Starving Some Of The Time Which Isn't Half So Bad If It Isn't You.
Life
Beautiful
People
Well, I Didn't Know How To Draw Very Well Back Then, In The '40s And '50s.
Wells
Draws
Know How
We Have To Raise The Consciousness; The Only Way Poets Can Change The World Is To Raise The Consciousness Of The General Populace.
World
Way
Consciousness
Don't Patronize The Chain Bookstores. Every Time I See Some Author Scheduled To Read And Sign His Books At A Chain Bookstore, I Feel Like Telling Him He's Stabbing The Independent Bookstores In The Back.
Book
Independent
Ties
Constantly Risking Absurdity And Death Whenever He Performs Above The Heads Of His Audience, The Poet, Like An Acrobat, Climbs On Rhyme To A High Wire Of His Own Making.
Wire
Rhyming
Poet
The Future Of Publishing Lies With The Small And Medium-sized Presses, Because The Big Publishers In New York Are All Part Of Huge Conglomerates.
New York
Lying
Bigs
[in The True Mad North] Of Introspection, Where 'falcons Of The Inner Eye' Dive And Die, Glimpsing In Their Dying Fall, All Life's Memory Of Existence.
Memories
Fall
Eye
My Country Tears Of Thee.
Country
America
Tears
I'm Reading A Book About Romaine Brooks, A Wonderful Painter From Early In The Last Century.
Book
Reading
Lasts
Don't Bow Down To Critics Who Have Not Themselves Written Great Masterpieces.
Bows
Critics
Masterpiece
I Certainly Was Surprised To Be Named Poet Laureate Of This Far-out City On The Left Side Of The World, And I Gratefully Accept, For As I Told The Mayor, "how Could I Refuse?" I'd Rather Be Poet Laureate Of San Francisco Than Anywhere Because This City Has Always Been A Poetic Center, A Frontier For Free Poetic Life, With Perhaps More Poets And More Poetry Readers Than Any City In The World.
Cities
San Francisco
World
T.s. Eliot's Influence Was Enormous On My Generation. Much More Than Ezra Pound. I Actually Had To Put T.s. Eliot Books Out Of The House Because My Poetry Was So Influenced. Everything I Wrote Sounded Like Eliot.
Book
House
Generations
In Plato's Republic, Poets Were Considered Subversive, A Danger To The Republic. I Kind Of Relish That Role. So I See My Present Role As A Gadfly, To Use My Soapbox To Promote My Various Ideas And Obsesions.
Plato
Ideas
Republic
If You're Going To Be A Writer You Should Sit Down And Write In The Morning, And Keep It Up All Day, Every Day. Charles Bukowski, No Matter How Drunk He Got The Night Before Or No Matter How Hungover He Was, The Next Morning He Was At His Typewriter. Every Morning. Holidays, Too. He'd Have A Bottle Of Whiskey With Him To Wake Up With, And That's What He Believed. That's The Way You Became A Writer: By Writing. When You Weren't Writing, You Weren't A Writer.
Morning
Writing
Holiday
We Were Just A One-room Bookstore; We Didn't Have Any Money For Lawyers.
Bookstores
Rooms
Lawyer
Our Government Is A Bird With Two Right Wings... They're Devoted To The Perpetuation & Spread Of Corporate Capitalism.
Government
Wings
Two
I Am Waiting For The War To Be Fought Which Will Make The World Safe For Anarchy
War
Waiting
World
Everything The Beats Stood For Was The Opposite Of The Dominant Culture Today.
Opposites
Culture
Today
When I Was A Boy I Was My Father.
Father
Boys
Today America's On The Wrong Side Of The World Revolution. What I Mean By That Is, The World Revolution Is The People's Revolution, The Liberation Movements In All The Third World Countries, Which When Everyone Tries To Get Started The U.s. Stops.
Country
Mean
Trying
I Feel There Is An Angel In Me' She'd Say 'whom I Am Constantly Shocking
Angel
Feels
Shocking
Poetry Can Change The World, Just Like Any Art Can Change The World, By Changing Consciousness. Of Course This Was The Great Slogan Of The Nineteen Sixites Hippies’ Revolution—enlarge The Area Of Consciousness, Which Quite Often Was Done By Psychedelic Means.
Art
Hippie
Mean
I Once Started Out To Walk Around The World But Ended Up In Brooklyn, That Bridge Was Too Much For Me.
Bridges
Brooklyn
World
They Were Looking For A Stable, But We Didn't Have One. In Fact, We Weren't Very Stable Ourselves.
Alaska
Facts
Stable
Poetry Must Be Capable Of Answering The Challenge Of Apocalytpic Times, Even If This Means Sounding Apocaltypic.
Mean
Challenges
Ifs
If You Would Be A Poet, Write Living Newspapers. Be A Reporter From Outer Space, Filing Dispatches To Some Supreme Managing Editor Who Believes In Full Disclosure And Has A Low Tolerance For Bullshit.
Believe
Writing
Editors
Recipe For Happiness Khaborovsk Or Anyplace' One Grand Boulevard With Trees With One Grand Cafe In Sun With Strong Black Coffee In Very Small Cups. One Not Necessarily Very Beautiful Man Or Woman Who Loves You. One Fine Day.
Beautiful
Strong
Coffee
The Real Literary Editors Have Mostly Been Fired. Those That Remain Are All 'bottom Line' Editors; Everything Depends On The Money.
Real
Editors
Lines
This Is All Very Nice, Because The Ideas That Jack And The Beat Generation Stood For Are Needed Today More Than Ever. But I'm Not So Interested In Nostalgia. I'm Interested In The Future.
Nice
Ideas
Today
As I Get Older I Perceive Life Has Its Tail In Its Mouth.
Tails
Mouths
Perceive
Communism Wasn't A Word That I Thought Of When I Went To Cuba. The Original Fidelistas Were Not Communists. They Were Graduate Students At The University And Law Students. After The Fidelistas Took Over, They Went To Washington And Tried To Get Support From The U.s. Government, Which Turned Them Down. They Were In A Desperate Political And Economic Situation, So They Took The Offer From The Soviet Union. Communism Was A Matter Of Necessity.
Government
Law
Political
Southern California, Where The American Dream Came Too True.
Dream
Usa
California
I Am Waiting For The Lost Music To Sound Again In A New Rebirth Of Wonder.
Waiting
Sound
Wonder
I Have A Feeling I'm Falling On Rare Occasions But Most Of The Time I Have My Feet On The Ground I Can't Help It If The Ground Itself Is Falling.
Fall
Feet
Feelings
Paperbacks Weren't Considered Real Books In The Book Trade. Up Till Then It Was Just Murder Mysteries, Potboilers, 25-cent Pocket Books Sold In Newsstands. When The New York Publishers Started Publishing Quality Paperbacks, There Was No Place To Buy Them.
New York
Real
Book
You Can Publish A Poem You Think Is A Very Important Poem, And You Don't Hear A Word From Anyone. [...] You Can Publish A Book Of Poetry By Dropping It Off A Cliff And Waiting To Hear An Echo. Quite Often, You'll Never Hear A Thing. So Doing That, Using Older Work, Puts It In A Context, And That Sort Of Forces The Reader To Realize What Its Importance Is-if It Has Any. Everything Needs A Context. You're Not Going To Recognize A Poet Unless You Have A Context.
Book
Thinking
Echoes
We Have Seen The Best Minds Of Our Generation Destroyed By Boredom At Poetry Readings.
Reading
Our Generation
Boredom
Beauty Stands And Waits With Gravity To Start Her Death-defying Leap
Beauty
Waiting
Defying
Poetry Is A Naked Woman, A Naked Man, And The Distance Between Them.
Distance
Men
Naked
When You're Young, Everything Seems Like A Romance. At 96, I Can Still Feel Romantic About Publishing Young Unknown Writers.
Romance
Young
Feels
See It Was Like This When We Waltz Into This Place. A Couple Of Papish Cats Is Doing An Aztec Two-step And I Says Dad Let's Cut But Then This Dame Comes Up Behind Me See And Says You And Me Could Really Exist Wow I Says Only The Next Day She Has Bad Teeth And Really Hates Poetry.
Couple
Dad
Hate
Poetry Is The Shadow Cast By Our Streetlight Imaginations.
Imagination
Poetry
Shadow
A Lot Of Manuscripts That Come In, You Wonder By What Outrageous Fantasy The Author Believes That This Should Be Pressed Into Print.
Believe
Fantasy
Wonder
Invent A New Language Anyone Can Understand.
Language
Creation
Poetry Is Eternal Graffiti Written In The Heart Of Everyone.
Heart
Poetry
Graffiti
Almost Every Truly Creative Being Alienated & Expatriated In His Own Country
Country
Creative
I Arrived In San Francisco In January 1951. After The Second World War, The Population Was So Uprooted. Soldiers Came Back Home For Brief Periods And Took Off Again. So The Population Was Very Fluid, And Suddenly It Was As If The Continent Tilted West. The Whole Population Slid West. It Took 10 Years For America To Coalesce Into A New Culture. And The New Culture Happened In San Francisco, Not New York.
New York
War
Home
Freedom Of Speech Is Always Under Attack By Fascist Mentality, Which Exists In All Parts Of The World, Unfortunately.
Freedom Of Speech
World
Fascists
Make Your Mind Learn Its Way Around The Heart.
Heart
Mind
Way
There Is An Ecstatic Mechanism In Birds That Makes Them Fly Upwards In Spite Of Worms.
Bird
Worms
Spite
I'd Ban All Automobiles From The Central Part Of The City. You See, The Automobile Was Just A Passing Fad. It's Got To Go. It's Got To Go A Long Way From Here.
Cities
Long
Fads
In Goya's Greatest Scenes We Seem To See The People Of The World Exactly At The Moment When They First Attained The Title Of 'suffering Humanity
People
Humanity
Suffering
I Was On Television A Couple Of Years Ago And The Reporter Asked Me, "how Does It Feel Being On Mainstream Media? It's Not Often Poets Get On Mainstream Media." I Said, "well I Think You're The Dominant Media, The Dominant Culture, But You're Not The Mainstream Media. The Mainstream Media Is Still The High Culture Of Intellectuals: Writers, Readers, Editors, Librarians, Professors, Artists, Art Critics, Poets, Novelists, And People Who Think. They Are The Mainstream Culture, Even Though You May Be The Dominant Culture."
Art
Couple
Thinking
Trending Author
Bob Barr
Lee Iacocca
Benjamin Jowett
Charlie Crist
Diogenes
Jane Pauley
Category
Information