• Ferlinghetti's Schedule of Readings & Events

    Books by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

    New Poems:
    • Are There Not Still Fireflies
    • Totalitarian Democracy
    • White Horse
    • Brainwashed Poet
    • Dragon's Teeth
    • Speak Out!
    • History of the Airplane

    Paintings:

    • Unfinished Flag of the United States
    • Don't Give Me


    Read a Recent Interview with Lawrence in the San Francisco Reader

    Lawrence's Acceptance Speech For the National Book Awards 2005

    Lawrence's Inaugural Speech For Poet Laureate of San Francisco 1998

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    And a vast paranoia sweeps across the land
    And America turns the attack on its Twin Towers
    Into the beginning of the Third World War
    The war with the Third World

    And the terrorists in Washington
    Are shipping out the young men
    To the killing fields again

    And no one speaks

    And they are rousting out
    All the ones with turbans
    And they are flushing out
    All the strange immigrants

    And they are shipping all the young men
    To the killing fields again

    And no one speaks

    And when they come to round up
    All the great writers and poets and painters
    The National Endowment of the Arts of Complacency
    Will not speak

    While all the young men
    Will be killing all the young men
    In the killing fields again

    So now is the time for you to speak
    All you lovers of liberty
    All you lovers of the pursuit of happiness
    All you lovers and sleepers
    Deep in your private dream
    Now is the time for you to speak
    O silent majority
    Before they come for you!


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