|
| |
|
|
Kenneth Rexroth and Lawrence Ferlinghetti
POETRY READINGS IN THE CELLAR
(FANTASY)
|
|
|
|
|
It’s 1957, and Kenneth Rexroth, éminence grise of the San Francisco poetry scene, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, poet, owner of City Lights Bookshop and publisher of the Pocket Poets Series, read in a local nightclub backed by a five-piece band. What’s more, the reading is recorded and issued by a solid West Coast jazz label. A time of uncommon interest in poetry? Not according to Rexroth, who hated the Beats and famously said, "There is no place in America for a poet, no place at all." He reads his poem "Thou Shalt Not Kill" with the nasal snarl of a carny barker. The band embellish rather than accompany him. Henry Miller once described the poem as having the "devastating effect of a hydrogen bomb." No longer. It is a dumb rant that blames the deaths of a long list of poets on men who wear Brooks Brothers suits. Very dated, it now gets laughs in all the wrong places. Ferlinghetti’s three poems got laughs then and might now. Led by tenor-saxophonist Bruce Lippincott, the band try to get into a groove, but Ferlinghetti yells his lines. Their set is more like parallel play than collaboration. At the time, Ferlinghetti was on his way to selling a million copies worldwide of A Coney Island of the Mind. As art, this CD is nothing; as artifact, it is a Proustian cookie.
|
