San Francisco Poems: Clinging to the Past (The Furly-nghetti Ghost)

As I write about San Francisco on this blog, please note that I am not discussing some static notion, definite geographic place, or specific populous. Rather, what I mean to explore is the mythic name “San Francisco”, and what it comes to stand for, suggest, or be associated with in the works we’re engaging. Also, how does San Francisco come to mean or suggest these things, and why? An analysis of both the general process of regional differentiation and of its implications for us as human beings, or perhaps as world citizens, seems particularly relevant to this moment in the evolution of human consciousness. Although locations must be demarcated for obvious practical issues of convenience, there seems to be much at stake in their conceptual formation.
This sense of urgency, this need to defend and cling to a static definition of San Francisco (an abstract notion which is actually collective and fluid) is to me the most striking characteristic of Ferlinghetti’s work in San Francisco Poems. Wrought with schismatic images of struggle and oppression, the overall message is “resist much” (28). And what are the young poet-addressees of this impassioned entreaty to resist? the transformation of San Francisco “from a diverse metropolis that welcomed immigrants and refugees […] to a homogeneous, wealthy enclave” (9).
Beginning with a classic gesture, “A North Beach Scene” depicts San Francisco as some sort of pastoral setting or potential Elysian field, for example with the intoxicating, slightly animal and erotic image of the mammalian female’s naked breasts being amorously caressed by a white sheet. The clean white linen, head-tossing carefree laughter, nakedness, and the concluding phrase “kingdom come”, all function to form this idealistic conceptualization. But wait—the “pure” San Francisco is threatened!
Fifty years later, San Francisco is becoming "just another American city,” or "an artistic theme-park, without artists," where "faceless investors with venture capital" evict Ferlinghetti’s friends (10, 26). This divide is the explicit focus of "Two Scavengers in a Truck, Two Beautiful People in a Mercedes," in which two garbage-men are contrasted with a beautiful couple. At the same time, the poems concede to the notion that these opposing image are in fact myths when the Oracle at Delphi is entreated to supply us with, “New myths to live by” in the eponymous poem addressed to her (81). In establishing two opposing fixed images of San Francisco--one as a desirable and endangered culturally diverse artistic fairyland heaven, and the other as an undesirable, heartless specter of industrial conglomerate horribleness—this selection of poetry and prose evokes fear of change and a sense of conflict in the reader, serving to drive the poems forward and even begetting further poems. Indeed, these works recruit the reader into their dichotomous world of strife and disillusionment, directly urging us to refuse to accept impermanence and change, a type of hypocritical anti-conservative conservativeness.
In "Challenges to Young Poets," the reader is encouraged to "reach for the unattainable" and Ferlinghetti is (OK, so it’s problematic to attribute the text to the author; humor me) doing just that in trying to hold onto a fluid and abstract concept of place as if it were absolute, definite, and static. This phenomenon of adopting conservative viewpoints, of idealizing the past in the face of an unstable and changing cultural and economic milieu, and then of calling this viewpoint progressive or liberal must be rather confusing to those who welcome increasing economic prosperity and technological advancement (perhaps what others like Ferlinghetti would characterize as excess). In Ferlingheitti's case, this opposition to economic excess manifests as a clinging to the past rather than a revisioning of the future. It seems to me that this sentimentaility is not only understandable, but is also a part of my own experience. Consider the obsession with all things vintage and analogue, the turn toward ancient and holistic medical paradigms and spiritual practices, the railing against the LRDP, etc.—aren’t these all manifestations of the same kind of fear? Some of us even wax nostalgic about decades that predate us! Taking this into account, I see Ferlinghetti’s prose and poetry as successfully capturing some of the pervasive sentiments of our times, and also as failing to argue it's case for cultural cohesion and economic justice in an effective or practical way.