Lawrence Ferlinghetti

From Philosopedia

Ferlinghetti, Lawrence (24 March 1913— )

An American author and publisher, Ferlinghetti helped found the City Lights Bookshop, which was a center for writers of the Beat Generation.

He encouraged Allen Ginsberg, among other authors. His A Coney Island of the Mind (1958) contains the sentence, “I am waiting for them to prove that God is really American.” Asked if he has ever been an active or inactive member of some religious group, Ferlinghetti responded in the negative. He added he does not believe in an afterlife and cited his “Big Fat Hairy Vision of Evil” in Starting from San Francisco (1956), part of which is as follows:

Evil evil evil evil

World is evil

Life is evil

All is evil

if i ride the horse of hate

with its evil hooded eye

turning world to evil. . . .

Evil evil evil evil evil evil evil

even if three naked monkeys

see no hear no speak no evil

Ebony Buddha With Three Eyes

is evil to evil eyes

Bronze Image Dancing Krishna

is evil Tibetan Conquerer of Death

draped in human skin

is evil

Singing Bodhisattva

is evil

in evil eyes. . . .

Horse will catch me in the living end

He’ll lie down on top of me

in my horsehair grave. . . .

Horse will lick my horsy face

with his gluepot tongue

Horse will puke on me

Poop his baked potatoes out on me

in death’s insanity

and i will eat this naked lunch

that turns me into him

in the death of that god

which is consciousness itself

Ah but i will not look out

before that date

three Horse’s fur windows

and vomit landscapes!

Asked in 1997 if he was a theist, he responded no. And asked if he believed in an afterlife and if the soul lived on, he said no, confirming his atheism.

{CE; TYD; WAS, 23 Apr 97 and 29 Oct 97}