"That's Why It's Poetry"

Lawrence Ferlinghetti, poet and publisher, died yesterday. Among other things, Ferlinghetti published Allen Ginsberg's Howl, and was prosecuted for obscenity because of that. One particular passage from that trial sticks in my head, as reported in Edward de Grazia, Girls Lean Back Everywhere 335-36 (1992); the colloquy was with an expert witness, literary critic Mark Schorer, who was testifying to the poem having "redeeming social importance":

Prosecutor: I presume you understand the whole thing, is that right?

Schorer: I hope so. It's not always easy to know that one understands exactly what a contemporary poet is saying….

Prosecutor: Do you understand what "angel-headed hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night" means?

Schorer: Sir, you can't translate poetry into prose. That's why it's poetry.

Comments

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

I think I like this Mark Shorer guy.

[Formerly Known as Stash]

Shorer's testimony reminds me of Robert Frost's comment:
“Only God and I knew what I meant when I wrote it, now only God knows.”

[DaivdBehar]

Another example of the failure of the lawyer profession. You got some real disruptive lawyers, there, conducting a campaign of lawfare against people to whom they are hostile.

You lawyers should control yourselves better. If you do not, someone should help you do so.

[Formerly Known as Stash]

Lawyers don't sue people, clients sue people.

[DaivdBehar]

The transcript says, Prosecutor.

[Dan Schiavetta]

“Christ climbed down
From his bare tree . . . “

[Formerly Known as Stash]

I had coffee with Ferlinghetti back in the 90's when he was in Chicago to receive an award. He was a gracious, witty and kind man.

[catter]

I was in a discovery meeting as an expert witness. One of the opposing lawyers demanded that I explain the meaning of one equation in the middle of an engineers report that I'd brought. I was fumbling through explaining the idea of showing one's work when our lead attorney opened a law book at random, bracketed a few lines with his fingers and asked what that fragment meant.