A Cony Island of the Mind by Lawerence Ferlinghetti

I have just finished reading, “A Coney Island of the Mind” by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. The book is a collection of poems by Ferlinghetti about his life in New York City and Brooklyn. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book of poems. There were many poems that blew my mind and others made me laugh. If I had to chose my favourite poem began something like:

“We did the Aztec two step
My father and I
We Decided to leave
Until a girl ran into me and said we’d live together forever.
The next day she hated poetry and had bad teeth.”

I found the book flowed well with other books that I have been currently reading or recently finished. Prior to reading “A Coney Island of the Mind”, I read, “Big Sur” by Jack Kerouac. Little did I know that Lawrence Ferlinghetti was actually a character in “Big Sur”. In “Big Sur”, Kerouac gives Ferlinghetti the character name of Lorenzo Monsanto. The majority of the novel takes place at Monsanto’s Big Sur Cabin, where Kerouac goes to escape from the fame of being a beat writer. Instead of getting weeks of rest and relaxation, Kerouac goes mad and ends up enduring in bacchanalia. I am enjoying reading beat literature and the next books on my list are “Howl” by Allan Ginsberg and “Naked Lunch” by William S. Burroughs.