A Coney Island of the Mind

A Coney Island of the Mind

First edition and current cover
Author Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Cover artist Rudolphe de Harak/Bettman Archive
Country U.S.
Language English
Genre Poetry
Published 1958 (New Directions)
Pages 93
ISBN 0-8112-0041-8
OCLC 284358

A Coney Island of the Mind is a collection of poetry by Lawrence Ferlinghetti originally published in 1958. It contains some of Ferlinghetti's most famous poems, such as "I Am Waiting" and "Junkman's Obbligato," which were created for jazz accompaniment. There are approximately a million copies in print of A Coney Island, and the book has been translated into over a dozen languages. It remains one of the best-selling and most popular books of poetry ever published. Because some of the material had been previously published, the first edition of Coney Island bears both a 1955 and a 1958 copyright.

Coney Island was written in the conservative post-war 1950s, and the poems "resonate ... with a joyful anti-establishment fervor".[1]

In 2008, New Directions published a Special 50th Anniversary Edition with a CD of the author reading his work.

Bibliography

References

Further reading

External links