Interactive Literature Selections Constantly risking absurdity

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Constantly risking absurdity

Constantly Risking Absurdity

Lawrence Ferlinghetti New Directions Publishing Corp. "Constantly Risking Absurdity" from A Coney Island of the Mind by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, copyright © 1958 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Reprinted/recorded by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.

During Reading Strategy
Use Text Organization as You Read

Vocabulary from the Selection
perforce

Guided Reading Question 1
What types of tricks does the poet perform?
Click to answer

		Constantly risking absurdity
			and death
		whenever he performs
			above the heads
5					of his audience
		the poet like an acrobat
			climbs on rime¹
				to a high wire of his own making
	and balancing on eyebeams²

10					above a sea of faces
		paces his way
			to the other side of day
		performing entrechats³
				and sleight-of-foot tricks
15		and other high theatrics
				and all without mistaking
		any thing
			for what it may not be
	For he’s the super realist
20				who must perforce perceive
		taut truth
			before the taking of each stance or step
		in his supposed advance
				toward that still higher perch
25		where Beauty stands and waits
				with gravity
		to start her death-defying leap
	And he
		a little charleychaplin⁴ man
30					who may or may not catch
		her fair eternal form
				spreadeagled in the empty air
		of existence

Guided Reading Question 2
How does an acrobat risk absurdity? How does a poet risk absurdity?
Click to answer

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