Lawrence Ferlinghetti was a member of the Beat poetry movement. He published his most well known poetry collection, A Coney Island of the Mind, in 1958. "Constantly Risking Absurdity" is from that collection.
In "Constantly Risking Absurdity", Ferlinghetti uses acrobatics, especially tightrope walking, as a metaphor for writing poetry. Like acrobats, poets have to tread very carefully, or else they can appear absurd or even, under certain circumstances, die. Though it is rare in modern times for poets to be persecuted for their writings, in earlier periods it was more common. Similarly, just as one misstep can bring death or injury for an acrobat, one wrong word, or even one misplaced word, can ruin an otherwise perfect poem and doom it to being mocked and forgotten. Even the formatting of a poem can make a huge difference as to whether it appears truthful or absurd. In the case of this particular poem, the formatting is a continuation of the metaphor. The lines of the poem alternate between being positioned on the right side of the poem and being positioned on the left. This not only creates a rough line running down the middle of the poem, similar to a tightrope, but it also imitates the careful walking that a tightrope walker would use. Each step is slow and deliberate. Though small details such as single words and formatting are important in all forms of literature, they are especially important in poetry, since poetry tends to be shorter. There is less room for error in a poem, just as there is less room for error when walking on a tightrope than when walking on a normal floor.
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