What do you get when you combine one of the 20th century’s most distinguished ecological poets with one of the 20th century’s most revered San Francisco-based Beat poets? The fusion of two converging visions of poetry and place. Snyder’s poetic world is among mountain peaks and the solitude of back country wilderness. Ferlinghetti’s world is decidedly more urban–his poems dwell in North Beach, San Francisco, in New York, Paris, and other cities.
The question is–in what ways might their different ideas of place converge? What are your thoughts?
Next week on Monday, November 7th, 2011 Ferlinghetti and Snyder are set to read in North Beach at Club Fugazi, a benefit for the San Francisco Poetry Center. With Snyder at the young age of 81 and Ferlinghetti at 92, this will be a once-in-a-lifetime experience to see these two literary legends share the same stage. I look forward to hearing them read and finding interconnections in their work.
For more information about the event, visit the Poetry Center event website.
Listen to Lawrence Ferlinghetti reading with Philip Whalen for the Poetry Center on December 12, 1956: here.
Listen to Gary Snyder reading with Phillip Levine for the Poetry Center on November 24, 1958: here.
–Kristi Moos
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WHAT AN AMAZING EVENING IT WAS. WE ARE TRULY BLESSED.