the tribe" like Kerouac. After previously being in
the company of Duncan and Rexroth, he was the
first to publish Howl at City lights. He later
formed the journal for the protection of human
beings with Meltzer and McClure. In "Goya's
greatest scenes we seem to see" he criticises
American Freedom and its ideational libertarian
roots in the Bastille "Heaped up groaning with
babies and bayonets under cement skies" and its
"imagination of disaster". He speaks
euphemistically throughout and states that
America is being “devoured”.
One purpose of the shaman is to raise the
consciousness of the tribe and here he makes a
profound attempt to do just that, the tribe being
the American counterculture. “Constantly risking
absurdity” is a nod to Mallarme, in it he states
“Constantly risking absurdity and death whenever
he performs”. This may well apply to Ferlinghetti
himself and his precarious activism (afterall he
was arrested after the six gallery reading for
obscenity). Gerald Vizenor coined the term
“survivance” understanding it to mean not merely
surviving but defining ourselves and raising social
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