Constantly Risking Absurdity is one of the most famous poems by Ferlinghetti. The poem discuses and at the same time illustrates various elements of poetic art of the poet. It begins with focusing on the person who creates the poem as on an individual who creates a kind of entertainment:
Constantly risking absurdity
And death
Whenever he performs
Above the heads
Of his audience.
Ferlinghetti involves a theme in the poem, which becomes parallel to the statement of Robert Frost that a poem is “a performance of words.” Ferlinghetti sets an image of a circus, which maintains values and perspectives of the artist, for whom the absurdity, which is described in the poem, is the most serious threat which is not being accepted as something serious.
This line is broken by Ferlinghetti after the skills of the poet are shown by the “performs”; then a pause follows and it brings a kind of modification or qualification on a notion which is apparently established.
The sequence which is used as an introductory one could have been ended after the line number three – the forth and the fifth lines let the readers know about concerns of the poet about intelligibility which is addressed to the masses, average readers; at the same time he maintains the conforming to the controlling image of the top.
Ferlinghetti continues with the description of the artistic performance:
The poet like an acrobat
Climbs on rime
To a high wire of his own making
And balancing on eyebeams
Above a sea of faces
Paces his way
To the other side of day
Performing entrechats
And sleight-of-foot tricks
And other high theatrics
And all without mistaking
Any thing
For what it may not be.
It is necessary to pay attention to the fact that Ferlinghetti creates assonance of “rime”, “climbs”, “high”, and “wire” in order to tighten the patterns of the sound of the lines of the poem. Thus, echo of sound in “climbs” and “rime” promotes underscoring of the line image.
As critiques state, “The wire is “of his own making” as the poet, attempting to discover and embody his own voice, creates his own challenge. The “eyebeams” reflect the need of the poet for an audience and are also “I-beams,” the subjective aspects of the poet’s creation. The next two lines show a familiar Ferlinghetti technique of rhyming the last word of a line with the first word of the next line.”
Whitson states that the true rhyme of “way” and “day” also carries on the assonance of “faces” and “paces” and “the other side of day” is the world of art, the world of darkness, of dreams, of danger, of images. The phrase “sleight-of-foot tricks,” perhaps with a glance at Wallace Stevens’ “The Sense of the Sleight-of-Hand Man,” reveals the poet taking on a common phrase and altering it slightly to make it appropriate for the acrobat-on-a-high-wire image, but also for the poet performing his sleights on feet – metrical feet. The last lines of this section emphasize Ferlinghetti’s obsession with accurate observation and with the dangers induced by the pathetic fallacy.”
It is necessary to pay attention to the fact …