A Poet Speaks
Amy Goodman recently interviewed Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the 88-year-old poet and founder of City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco. He read a new poem.
PITY THE NATION
Pity the nation whose people are sheep,
and whose shepherds mislead them.
Pity the nation whose leaders are liars,
whose sages are silenced,
and whose bigots haunt the airwaves.
Pity the nation that raises not its voice,
except to praise conquerors and acclaim
the bully as hero
and aims to rule the world with force and
by torture.
Pity the nation that knows no other
language but its own
and no other culture but its own.
Pity the nation whose breath is money
and sleeps the sleep of the too well fed.
Pity the nation–oh, pity the people who
allow their rights to erode
and their freedoms to be washed away.
My country, tears of thee, sweet land of liberty.
—–
Cross-posted with a tip of the hat to Andreas on the Literature and Ideas Facebook group
Posted: September 13th, 2007 under Uncategorized.
Comments: 9
Comments
Comment from Anonymous
Time: September 13, 2007, 4:33 am
Poetry?
Rant maybe
88 ?
possible senility
too full of cliche
to be
Poetry
too silly
Comment from Max von Schuler-Kobayashi
Time: September 13, 2007, 9:08 am
Nice poem John. Too bad most people won’t pay attention.
Comment from I.B.Lever
Time: September 15, 2007, 3:28 am
Pity Anonymous for he or she, is of whom John speaks .
Comment from Anonymous
Time: September 15, 2007, 4:09 am
Seriously, do you guys really consider that crap poetry?
Comment from Max von Schuler-Kobayashi
Time: September 15, 2007, 6:10 am
Absolutely. It tells the story of a Great Nation gone wrong.
Comment from Anonymous
Time: September 15, 2007, 6:45 am
It is simply a versified outburst of emotion in prose. = not a poem. Biggest reason, no originality and certainly no imagery.
Comment from Anonymous
Time: September 15, 2007, 6:49 am
One more thing , granted there are a lot of left wing poets, but keep in mind not all Lefty’s are poets.
Comment from I.B.Lever
Time: September 16, 2007, 5:54 am
And may you keep in mind, not poets are “Lefties” .
Comment from I.B.Lever
Time: September 16, 2007, 5:57 am
should have read, ” not all poets are “Lefties”. Well excuse me- just woke up ……
Write a comment