Lawrence Ferlinghetti

A Coney Island of the mind 9

Language: english

Translations: german (A Coney Island of the mind 9), hebrew (קוני איילנד של המוח 9)

A Coney Island of the mind 9

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

Translations:

Language: german

A Coney Island of the mind 9

Also
       es war so daß
                      wir da reinschneien
und zwei Katholen-Schicksen
                                legen einen Azteken-Twostep hin
Und ich sag
                   Alter verschwinden wir
doch dann kommt diese Dame weißte
                                       von hinten auf mich zu
                                                   und sagt
                                          Du und ich das wär schon was
Wow sage ich
                       Nur am nächsten Tag
                              hat sie schlechte Zähne
                                     und haßt nichts so sehr wie
                                                                                 Gedichte

Language: hebrew

קוני איילנד של המוח 9

אַתָּה מֵבִין

זֶה הָיָה כַּכָה

אֲנַחְנוּ מִשְׁתחלִים לָנוּ לַמָּקוֹם הַזֶּה

זוּג חָתוּלִים קָתוֹלִים

מְבצֵּעַ צַעַד-כָּפוּל אַצְטֶקִי

ואֲנִי אוֹמֵר

אַבָּא בּוֹא נַחתוךְ לתוך הזוּגוֹת וְנַזְמִין

אֲבָל אָז הַגְּבֶרֶת הַזֹּאת

מוֹפִיעָה מֵאֲחוֹרַי אַתָּה מֵבִין

ואוֹמֶרֶת

אַתָּה ואֲנִי היינוּ יְכוֹלִים לִהְיוֹת, אֲבָל חָזָק

וואוֹ אֲנִי אוֹמֵר

רַק שֶׁלְמָחֳרָת

יֵשׁ לָה שִׁינַיִם מְקֻלְקָלוֹת

וְהִיא מַמָּשׁ שׂוֹנֵאת

שִׁירָה

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

* 24.03.1919, Yonkers, New York, United States
† 22.02.2021, San Francisco, United States

A prominent voice of the wide-open poetry movement that began in the 1950s, Lawrence Ferlinghetti has written poetry, translation, fiction, theater, art criticism, film narration, and essays.

Ferlinghetti was born in Yonkers in 1919. He received a Master’s degree from Columbia University in 1947 and a Doctorate de l’Université de Paris (Sorbonne) in 1950. In 1953, with Peter D. Martin, he founded City Lights Bookstore, the first all-paperbound bookshop in the country, and by 1955 he had launched the City Lights publishing house. His publication of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl in 1956 led to his arrest on obscenity charges, and the trial that followed drew national attention to the San Francisco Renaissance and Beat movement writers. This landmark First Amendment case established a legal precedent for the publication of controversial work with redeeming social importance.

Ferlinghetti’s paintings have been shown at various galleries around the world, from the Butler Museum of American Painting to Il Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome.

Ferlinghetti’s A Coney Island of the Mind continues to be the most popular poetry book in the U.S. It has been translated into nine languages, and there are nearly 1,000,000 copies in print. The author of poetry, plays, fiction, art criticism, and essays, he has a dozen books currently in print in the U.S., and his work has been translated in many countries and in many languages. His most recent books are A Far Rockaway of the Heart (1997), How to Paint Sunlight (2001), and Americus Book I (2004) published by New Directions.

Ferlinghetti died on February 22, 2021, at his home in San Francisco at age 101.

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