A Powerpoint presentation for schools

1. Constantly Risking Absurdity By Lawrence Ferlinghetti

10. performing entrechats and sleight-of-foot tricks

11. and other high theatrics and all without mistaking

14. taut truth before the taking of each stance or step

15. in his supposed advance towards that still higher perch

16. where Beauty stands and waits with gravity to start her death-defying leap

17. and he a little charliechaplinman who may or may not catch

18. her fair eternal form spreadeagled in the empty air of existence

40. . Recognized as one of the most influential and important poets of the Beat movement, Lawrence Ferlinghetti was born in Yonkers, New York on March 24, 1919. Shortly after his birth, Ferlinghetti's mother was committed to an asylum for the insane and the young boy was sent to France to be raised by a female relative. It wasn't until his return to America, at the age of five, that this future poet learned to speak English. Ferlinghetti also began writing poetry during his years at boarding school in the late 1920's.

41. The term "the beat generation" was first used by John Clellon Holmes in a 1952 article, This Is The Beat Generation , about the young people of his time for the New York Times Magazine. Recalling a conversation with Jack Kerouac in 1948, Holmes had asked Kerouac to think of a way to describe the unique qualities of his generation; Kerouac came up with the term 'Beat Generation' on the spot. The term "beat" bears connotations of down-beat, worn out, down-and-out, drop-out and beatitude.

42. The beat poets and writers developed their own slang and highly idiosyncratic style. Their convictions and attitudes were unconventional, provocative, anti-intellectual, anti-hierarchical and anti-middle-class. They were influenced by jazz, by Zen Buddhism and by American Indian and Mexican Peyote cults, and their Bohemian lifestyle was popularly associated with drugs, 'free' sex, drink and permissive living in general. It was in some respects anarchic and provoked considerable hostility.