Ferlinghetti, Lawrence

Time of Useful Consciousness

ISBN: 9780811220316
New York, NY: New Directions, 2012. First Printing. Hardcover. As Ferlinghetti writes in the “Notes” section of this work, “Time of Useful Consciousness,” [is] an aeronautical term denoting the time between when one loses oxygen and when one passes out, the brief time in which some lifesaving action is possible. (The phrase is used as the call letters of TUC RADIO, an FM broadcaster, produced by former KP FA/Pacifica Radio staffer Maria Gilardin).” When New Directions first published Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s (1919-2021) Time of Useful Consciousness, they described it as, “a galvanizing new book” authored by a poet aged “ninety-three,” who, — in their minds and mine, — “shows more power than most any other poet at work today.” The unbelievable epigrammatic potency of this work is largely because it was the first since the elite and indispensable Poetry as Insurgent Art, — a work of great personal importance to this writer, and one all “literary” authors should read. Ferlinghetti himself described the work as “a fragmented recording of the American stream-of-consciousness, always westward streaming; a people’s poetic history in the tradition of William Carlos Williams’s Paterson, Charles Olson’s Maximus,, Allen Ginsberg’s Fall of America,, and Ed Sanders’s America: a History in Verse. Add LF to that mix of American Blakeans, — all of whom” know breakthrough” as visionary artists; having brought it upon their own lives and minds — and the resulting quintet of excellence should give the curious reader an inkling about how powerful Time of Useful Consciousness is. There is legitimately no risk here, esp. if you’re a writer. Come on, come in! Like Lawrence, I too am “signaling you through the flames.” From the archive of Thomas Rain Crowe, the legendary American poet and co-authorial founder of the Second San Francisco Renaissance. For more information on the Thomas Rain Crowe archive (assembled & curated by Third Mind Books), see our book, Starting from San Francisco: Thomas Rain Crowe in Conversation with Third Mind Books (Item No. 3071) & the catalog for the Crowe archive (Item No. 1010), which contains several excerpts and quotations from the book as well as a full listing of the archive’s contents, which are now being offered for sale individually on the Third Mind Books site. Hardcover in illustrated boards: First Edition, though not explicated as such on copyright page; First Printing, as indicated by number sequence thereon. In very fine condition with only minute shelf-wear to fine-edges & corners of front, back covers & spine-edge, otherwise clean. Very Fine. [Item #7451]

Price: $30.00