102 contemporary poetry
phrase ‘I am Waiting’, which acts as a refrain. Paradoxically, this
phrase’s constant recontextualisation creates a dynamic movement,
while also affi rming that the poet is in a static position waiting for
change. As a chorus, ‘I am Waiting’ adds a curious twist – inciting
a desire for action and agency. This dynamic possibility is coupled
with humour and irony, and the focus of Ferlinghetti’s anger is
directed at the Cold War USA. The speaker states: ‘I am waiting
for someone to really discover America / and wail’ (p. 46 ) and ‘I
am waiting / for them to prove / that God is really American’
(p. 47 ). Ferlinghetti’s poem seeks to rewrite histories, his liberal
anarchist sentiments are clear in his wait for ‘the Last Supper to be
served again / with a strange new appetizer’ and ‘for the meek to
be blessed / and inherit the earth / without taxes’ (p. 47 ) – as well
as ‘a reconstructed Mayfl ower / to reach America / with its picture
story and TV rights’ (p. 48 ). The speaker is painfully aware of the
different media that compete against the performance of his poem,
as well as a pressure to reanimate literary history. One section of the
poem is dedicated towards what he terms as ‘some strains of unpre-
meditated art / to shake my typewriter’ as he waits to write ‘the
great indelible poem’ (p. 49 ). Ferlinghetti’s poem performs against
a largely romantic literary backdrop, waiting for ‘retribution for
what America did to Tom Sawyer’, for Alice in Wonderland to
‘retransmit to me her total dream of innocence’, as well as an evo-
cation of William Wordsworth in the desire to ‘get some intima-
tions / of immortality’ and a fi nal reproach to the lovers in John
Keats’s ‘Ode to a Grecian Urn’ ‘to catch each other up at last’ (p.
49 ). The poet’s closing pronouncement that he is waiting ‘per-
petually and forever’ (p. 49 ), indicates that his desire for change
has attained a status of perpetuity – if not immortality. Certainly
the reprise creates the invocation of a litany within Ferlinghetti’s
poem, which he performs as a mock sacrament upon his
audience.
PERFORMING RACE: AMIRI BARAKA’S JAZZ POETIC
If Ferlinghetti’s awareness of an audience is apparent in his use of
humour and a mock reverential pronouncement, Amiri Baraka’s