I Am Waiting (1958). Summary and Description

“I Am Waiting” is a list poem, a type of poem in which the poet provides a catalog of objects or events, generally all pertaining to a single theme. In this particular poem, Ferlinghetti presents a speaker waiting for a number of events to occur. Most of the events the speaker catalogs are related to either the political or the artistic realm, and the speaker often mixes genuine sociopolitical concerns with sometimes-humorous popular culture references. At one point, for example, the speaker says: “I am waiting / for them to prove / that God is really American / and I am seriously waiting / for Billy Graham and Elvis Presley / to exchange roles seriously” (ll. 32-37).

Here, the speaker uses humor to address a pressing topic: the way that Americans define themselves as a religious people. The fact that the speaker is “waiting” for someone to prove God is American implies both that no one has done it yet and that he may not agree with people who think that God really is American. The desire to see Elvis Presley, a famous rock musician and pop culture icon, and Billy Graham, a well- known evangelist, change places also reveals the speaker’s skepticism regarding the power of religion, implying that religion may be no more than show business or mere entertainment.

There is clearly a skeptical tone in this poem, but just as clearly, the repetition of the phrase “I am waiting” also implies earnestness, a desire to see things change and a hope that they eventually will. There is also an underlying seriousness in this poem, indicated by the relative importance of the events the speaker wishes to see occur. Later in the poem, for instance, the speaker tells us that he is waiting “for the atomic tests to end,” “for things to get much worse / before they improve,” and “for the human crowd / to wander off a cliff somewhere / clutching its atomic umbrella” (ll. 57, 58-59, 63-65).

The references to atomic war/ energy and conditions getting worse reflect the concerns of many Americans during the cold war, and this speaker clearly believes that some sort of catastrophic nuclear event will occur. Near the poem’s conclusion, the speaker becomes less concerned with the political and more concerned with the artistic. Referring to works by Keats and Shelley, two romantic poets, he says, “I am waiting / for some strains of unpremeditated art / to shake my typewriter,” and he is waiting for “the fleeing lovers on the Grecian Urn / to catch each other up at last / and embrace” (ll. 153-155, 161-163).

Thus, the latter part of the poem is more hopeful, and the implicit argument of the poem is that it is perhaps art that can redeem or rescue humanity from itself. It is art, the speaker hopes, that will provide that for which the speaker is ultimately waiting, a “renaissance of wonder” (l. 166).

For Discussion or Writing
1. How does the repetition of the phrase I am waiting help construct the tone of the poem? What is the tone of the poem? What does the speaker seem to want most of the things he lists?

2. I dentify all of the things that the speaker wants that are related to religion. What is the speaker’s attitude toward religion?