Constantly Risking Absurdity Resources

They're yours for the reading at Poets.org.

This awesome bookstore is Beat-central. Well worth a stop if you're ever in SF.

For Ferlinghetti, this is what being a poet is all about.

We often equate him to the Beat movement for obvious reasons, but the poet isn't about labels when it comes to his own work.

After publishing Ginsberg's "Howl" in 1956, Ferlinghetti was arrested the following year on "obscenity charges," says the NY Times. Told you he breaks the rules.

Ferlinghetti wrote a book-length poem that discusses corporations ruling the people, and the fact man is "greedy and badly educated," says The San Francisco Chronicle. So the poet's job is more complicated (and controversial) than we thought.

Here's a cool reading of the poem.

Here's a reading by the man himself. And it's good example of the poet's conversational style.

Check out this short trailer for his documentary film.

If Ferlinghetti doesn't like the music that's matched with his poetry in A Coney Island of the Mind, he tends to get a little miffed.

The movement still has some movement and so does the slogan "be here now."

Even his interviews (interviewers) sound cool.

Here's the complete collection, with our favorite, "Constantly Risking Absurdity."

More on breaking rules and doing so with a purpose in mind. That's the Beat way.

This novel by Ferlinghetti revisits the artist's search for an ideal, like, say, Beauty?

Check out what the high wire's made of.

Okay, so LF doesn't look anything like the guy. But hey—at least he's got the chapeau.

In living color.