The Full Text of “Constantly Risking Absurdity”
The Full Text of “Constantly Risking Absurdity”
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“Constantly Risking Absurdity” Introduction
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The American Beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti first published "Constantly Risking Absurdity" in his 1958 collection A Coney Island of the Mind. The poem compares the poet to an acrobat who must perform difficult, dangerous, and—if they fail—potentially humiliating tricks in the service of mesmerizing the audience. Yet only by risking failure, the poem suggests, does the poet have any chance at capturing something that is not only beautiful and true, but that will also stand the test of time.
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“Constantly Risking Absurdity” Summary
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The poet is like a tightrope walker in the sense that he's always at the risk of looking ridiculous, and even dying, every time he performs over the heads of his spectators. The poet uses rhyme to climb up to a high wire that he himself has created. The lines of sight from the sea of faces below are like balance beams that the poet slowly walks across, executing difficult leaps involving intricate footwork and other theatrical techniques, all while being careful not to confuse anything for something it's not.
Because he's devoted to representing things the way they actually are, he has to discern solid truth before he assumes each new position or takes a step in his presumed climb toward that even higher ledge, where Beauty herself solemnly waits, like a trapeze artist ready to begin her dangerous and mesmerizing leap.
And the poet is like a comedic figure who may or may not actually catch her beautiful, ever-lasting shape as it spreads out in the vacant air of existence.
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“Constantly Risking Absurdity” Themes
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The Difficulty and Beauty of Poetry
“Constantly Risking Absurdity” compares the poet’s process to that of a tightrope walker. Like an acrobat, the speaker says, a poet must take chances and risk failure in order to achieve something worthwhile. Writing a poem can feel like performing on a “high wire”: trying to communicate profound truths, the poet is always at risk of making a wrong move and “falling” into the trap of being silly and false. But it is only by risking the possibility of such a failure, the speaker argues, that the poet stands any chance of capturing something beautiful and lasting.
Comparing the poet to an acrobat on a “wire of his own making,” the speaker suggests that poets are always risking a dangerous fall into “absurdity.” Like an acrobat performing “entrechats” (fancy and dangerous mid-air footwork), the poet must at once be entertaining and careful: if their language doesn’t land exactly right, they’ll find themselves plummeting into embarrassing and dishonest writing. In other words, poets are always at risk of making fools of themselves! Their writing may amount to no more than show-offy clowning if they make the mistake of valuing flashy style over the truth the poem is trying to reveal.
Writing poetry, the speaker suggests, is thus a careful balancing act: poets must at once perform elegantly and never lose contact with their central sense of what is true. The speaker says the poet must be a “super realist” and keep their eyes fixed on truth with every step—or artistic choice—they make. If the poet can indeed balance “high theatrics” with the “taut truth”—all while facing the possibility that things could go terribly wrong at any moment—then they’ll have the chance to produce art of real beauty and lasting value.
To that end, the speaker describes “Beauty” as a trapeze performer who is waiting on all the other elements of the act to fall into place before she can “start her death-defying leap.” The poet needs to make it to the right place at the right time to “catch” her. This illustrates the fact that every little piece of the poem must work in order for it to even have a chance at capturing lasting beauty.
The poet also has to recognize their own limits! The speaker calls the poet a “little charleychaplin man,” a comical figure trying to make his way to Beauty. Even when he’s doing the most careful, precise work, he’s still a little bit of a clown—and he may or may not actually be able to capture beauty’s “eternal form.” Beauty itself has to do some of the work here, too. In other words, no matter how good the poet is, there is still an element of chance. If the poet has done everything right and is lucky, then the poem will capture a moment of fleeting beauty—and in doing so, “defy[]” death, preserving something lovely forever.
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Lines 1-33
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Constantly Risking Absurdity”
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Lines 1-5
Constantly risking absurdity ...
... of his audienceThe poem begins in midair, so to speak—immediately diving into its extended metaphor of the poet as an acrobat. The reader doesn't arrive at the main clause of the poem's winding opening sentence until line 6, however; until then, they'd be forgiven for thinking the poem was about an actual acrobat.
Such a performer is, indeed, risking death when doing tricks up in the air, "above the heads / of his audience." And by "risking absurdity," the speaker means that this performer is in danger of looking ridiculous. Once readers know that the poem is actually using all this acrobat imagery to talk about the process of writing poetry, these lines take on a different meaning. The poet is always at risk of looking like a fool or even metaphorically dying (perhaps in the sense of their work being such a failure that they're forgotten).
The poem's winding syntax (or arrangement of words) and use of enjambment create an immediate sense of momentum and anticipation, breathlessly pulling the reader down the page and perhaps even evoking the tension one might feel while watching a trapeze artist perform.
The complete lack of punctuation allows these lines to flow freely, without obstruction. The poem also plays with white space, indenting lines far from the left-hand margin. All this space reflects the image of a figure performing up in the air, surrounded by empty space.
While the poem is visually striking, the speaker also plays with sound to great effect. Note all the sharp /k/ and /t/ consonance and hissing sibilance in line 1, for example:
Constantly risking absurdity
The line feels crisp and clear, but also slippery because of that /s/. The sounds of the line evoke the way both the poet and the acrobat must strike a balance or else "fall" into "absurdity."
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Lines 6-8
the poet like ...
... his own making -
Lines 9-12
and balancing on ...
... side of day -
Lines 13-18
performing entrechats ...
... may not be -
Lines 19-21
For he's ...
... taut truth -
Lines 22-24
before the taking ...
... still higher perch -
Lines 25-27
where Beauty stands ...
... her death-defying leap -
Lines 28-31
And he ...
... fair eternal form -
Lines 32-33
spreadeagled in the ...
... of existence
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“Constantly Risking Absurdity” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Consonance
The poem uses plenty of consonance to fill its line with musicality, and also to add emphasis to certain words and phrases. For example, note how crisp /t/ and /k/ sounds in the opening line mix with slippery /s/ sounds, perhaps evoking the poet/acrobat's highwire balancing act:
Constantly risking absurdity
As the poet moves forward in this act, consonance combines with alliteration and assonance to build up the poem's intensity and momentum. Take likes 7-11, with their slew of /m/ and /s/ and long /ee/, /i/, and /ay/ sounds:
climbs on rime
to a high wire of his own making
and balancing on eyebeams
above a sea of faces
paces his wayThe burst of consonance goes hand-in-hand with the description of the poet "climb[ing]" and "performing" like an acrobat. The poet uses sound the way that an acrobat uses their body; consonance is essentially one of the poet's "tricks" that can be used to captivate an audience.
Consonance also helps to evoke certain moods and feelings depending on the particular sounds being used. Lines 19-21, for example, feature sharp /p/ and /t/ sounds mixed with growing /r/ and hissing /s/ sounds:
For he's the super realist
who must perforce perceive
taut truthThe lines feel tense and forceful. The sounds themselves might even seem pulled "taut" here, tightly woven into the lines.
Where consonance appears in the poem:- Line 1: “Constantly risking absurdity”
- Line 2: “death”
- Line 7: “climbs,” “rime”
- Line 9: “balancing,” “eyebeams”
- Line 10: “above,” “sea,” “faces”
- Line 11: “paces”
- Line 12: “side,” “day”
- Line 13: “entrechats”
- Line 14: “sleight,” “tricks”
- Line 15: “theatrics”
- Line 16: “mistaking”
- Line 19: “super realist”
- Line 20: “perforce perceive”
- Line 21: “taut truth”
- Line 22: “taking,” “stance,” “step”
- Line 23: “supposed advance”
- Line 24: “toward,” “still”
- Line 25: “Beauty stands,” “waits”
- Line 26: “gravity”
- Line 27: “to start,” “death-defying”
- Line 29: “little charleychaplin”
- Line 30: “catch”
- Line 31: “her fair eternal form”
- Line 32: “spreadeagled,” “empty”
- Line 33: “existence”
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Assonance
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Alliteration
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Imagery
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Pun
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Extended Metaphor
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Enjambment
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"Constantly Risking Absurdity" Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Absurdity
- Acrobat
- Rime
- Eyebeams
- Entrechats
- sleight-of-foot
- Theatrics
- Perforce
- Taut
- Stance
- Charleychaplin man
- Fair
- Spreadeagled
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(Location in poem: Line 1: “Constantly risking absurdity”)
Ridiculousness, foolishness, or stupidity.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Constantly Risking Absurdity”
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Form
"Constantly Risking Absurdity" is made up of three stanzas of different lengths. Visually, the poem is quite striking: only five of its 33 lines begin on the left-hand margin of the page, while the rest are indented to varying degrees.
The poem's use of white space creates a sense of movement and dynamism that captures the careful balancing act of an acrobat in midair. The lines that float the furthest into the right-hand margin look almost like they're floating and may evoke the feeling of watching someone perform at a great height. The reader can visualize the vulnerability of the acrobat-poet climbing "to a high wire of his own making" and "Beauty" waiting to begin her "death-defying leap" in part because of the way these particular lines extend out into white space.
The back-and-forth look of the lines also evokes the sense of "high theatrics" the speaker describes in the poem. Like an acrobat, the poet uses every tool at his disposal to captivate the "audience"—or reader.
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Meter
The poem is written in free verse, meaning it doesn't stick to any set meter. The use of free verse allows the poem to focus on its fresh imagery and to create organic and surprising rhythms. The poem is unpredictable throughout, resulting in a sense of tension that evokes the feeling of watching an acrobat balancing on a tightrope.
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Rhyme Scheme
The poem is written in free verse and thus follows no set rhyme scheme. That said, the poem does make use of occasional rhyme. In lines 6-15, for example, there are internal rhymes between "climbs"/"rime" and "faces"/ "paces," as well as end rhymes between "way"/"day" and "tricks"/"theatrics." By using rhyme intermittently rather than in a fixed pattern, the speaker allows for a sense of spontaneity and surprise. There's a sense of anticipation, as the reader doesn't know when a rhyme is going to appear.
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“Constantly Risking Absurdity” Speaker
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The poem's speaker is someone making a comparison between writing poetry and performing acrobatics. The speaker isn't really present in the poem, however (unless one assumes the speaker to be the "poet" being described). This is because the poem isn't about any particular person; it's about the art of writing poetry.
Because this is a poem about writing poetry and it's by written, of course, by a poet, it's probably fair to conflate the speaker with Ferlinghetti himself. The poem, then, represents Ferlinghetti's ideas about what the work of poetry is. For him, poetry is a balancing act, and while its goal is truth and beauty, one can't expect to get there without "constantly risking absurdity."
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“Constantly Risking Absurdity” Setting
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The setting of the poem is an imaginary one. The speaker is comparing a poet to an acrobat so that the reader can better visualize the poet's work—something that is rather difficult to do, given that, unlike actual acrobats, poets don't literally perform on a wire over the heads of their audience!
The poem borrows the sense of a physical world from the imagery associated with acrobats, such as "balancing [...] / above a sea of faces" and "performing entrechats / and sleight-of-foot tricks." In this way, the reader can visualize the world of a circus performer: the "high wire," the audience, the "death-defying leap." Again, though, the setting isn't describing a real place but rather is being used in the service of metaphor. The poem uses the language of acrobatics to illustrate the process of writing (and, to an extent, reading) poetry.
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Literary and Historical Context of “Constantly Risking Absurdity”
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Literary Context
Lawrence Ferlinghetti published "Constantly Risking Absurdity" in his 1958 collection A Coney Island of the Mind. Ferlinghetti's work is associated with the Beats, a counterculture literary movement that developed in the wake of WWII. The Beats rejected the materialism and conformity of mainstream American culture and were influenced by jazz rhythms, French surrealism, and eastern religions.
Ferlinghetti played an important role in the Beat movement (the bookstore he co-founded in San Francisco, City Lights, was in fact a gathering place for Beat writers), but he personally identified more as a "Bohemian" (a title referring not to a literary movement so much as an unconventional, nonmaterialistic lifestyle). Ferlinghetti is also linked to the San Francisco Renaissance, which was the name given to a diverse variety of poetic communities that rejected the formalist poetry of the mid-20th century. Such poetry, these communities felt, had regressed to traditional formalism in the wake of World War II, forsaking the revolutionary changes brought about by Modernism in the early 19th century.
However one chooses to categorize Ferlinghetti, his work is notably unacademic and anti-establishment, aiming instead for accessibility and authenticity. Ferlinghetti valued poetry that didn’t just appeal to the highly educated and instead could be shared among ordinary people.
A painter as well as a poet, Ferlinghetti was also deeply influenced by the Spanish Romantic painter Goya (whom he wrote about in his poem “In Goya’s Greatest Scenes We Seem to See...”). In fact, much of Ferlinghetti’s poetry is occupied with other art forms (such as acrobatics in "Constantly Risking Absurdity"), most often with painting or jazz music.
Historical Context
The Beat movement developed in response to the general disillusionment that permeated much of the world after the senseless horrors of World War II. Ferlinghetti himself had served in the U.S. Navy and was present for the 1944 invasion of Normandy, where he served as a skipper and a submarine chaser.
After the war, Ferlinghetti took advantage of the G.I. bill to obtain a master's degree in English literature from Columbia University and then went on to earn a Ph.D. in comparative literature at the Sorbonne in Paris, France. Shortly after, he returned to the United States, where he moved to San Francisco and opened City Lights Bookstore.
The bookstore quickly became a gathering place for Beat writers, some of whom Ferlinghetti would go on to befriend and even publish through the City Lights Pocket Poets series. This included the first edition of Allan Ginsberg’s popular and controversial book Howl and Other Poems, published in 1956.
The publication of Howl led to one of the most famous freedom-of-speech trials in modern American history, as Ferlinghetti was arrested for printing and selling “obscene” material (Ginsberg’s book described psychedelic drug use and homosexual intercourse, which at the time was considered shocking). The American Civil Liberties Union defended Ferlinghetti and ultimately won the case.
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More “Constantly Risking Absurdity” Resources
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External Resources
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The San Francisco Renaissance — An introduction to the Bay area poets (including Ferlinghetti) that sprang up in opposition to mainstream poetry in the 1940s and '50s.
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A Reading of the Poem — Hear the poem read aloud by the poet himself.
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A Coney Island of the Mind — A review of Ferlinghetti's first collection of poems, written 50 years after its publication, for The Guardian.
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Lawrence Ferlinghetti's Biography — Read a short biography the poet via City Lights, the book shop and publishing house Ferlinghetti founded.
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The Flying Trapeze — Watch circus acrobats in action.
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