Lawrence Ferlinghetti:

Two Scavengers in a Truck,

Two Beautiful People in a
Mercedes

At the stoplight waiting for the

light
                   nine a.m. downtown
San Francisco
   a bright yellow garbage truck
            with two garbagemen in red
plastic blazers
     standing on the back stoop
                   one on each side
hanging on
  and looking down into
                   an elegant open
Mercedes
       with an elegant couple in it
The man
      in a hip three-piece linen suit
         with shoulder-length blond
hair & sunglasses
The young blond woman so
casually coifed
               with a short skirt and
colored stockings
   on the way to his architect's
office
And the two scavengers up since four a.m.
                   grungy from their route
          on the way home
The older of the two with grey iron hair
                         and hunched back
        looking down like some
                gargoyle Quasimodo
And the younger of the two
            also with sunglasses & long hair
      about the same age as the Mercedes driver
And both scavengers gazing down
                         as from a great distance
               at the cool couple
      as if they were watching some odorless TV ad
           in which everything is always possible
And the very red light for an instant
              holding all four close together
          as if anything at all were possible
                                   between them
       across that small gulf
                     in the high seas
                                   of this democracy
 Two Scavengers in a Truck,
Two Beautiful People in a
Mercedes

•The title shows us straight away that the

poem will be about the contrasts between two
pairs of people. Scavengers is a derogatory
term for the garbagemen because it suggests
that they live off the rubbish of others - a
scavenger beetle lives off rotting flesh.
However, Beautiful People is a compliment.
So, right from the start, we feel the
garbagemen are at a disadvantage.
 Two Scavengers in a Truck,
Two Beautiful People in a
Mercedes

Describes four people held together for a

moment at a red traffic light. There are two
scavengers, garbagemen 'on their way home'
after their round, and two beautiful people, an
elegant couple 'on the way to his architect's
office'. The garbagemen's day ends where the
young couple's begins. The poet compares the
two pairs in detail, then seems to ask - at the
end of the poem - whether America really is a
democracy.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti:
Lawrence Ferlinghetti was born in
1919 in New York. One of the main
poets of the Beat movement. He
often writes about politics and social
issues

At the stoplight waiting for the The garbagemen are 'looking

light down' (line 7) into the
                   nine a.m. downtown Mercedes. At face value this is
San Francisco clearly because the garbage
   a bright yellow garbage truck truck is taller than the car, but
            with two garbagemen in red is there an ironic message too?
plastic blazers
You might have expected the
     standing on the back stoop
                   one on each side rich couple to 'look down on'
hanging on the dustmen, not the other way
  and looking down into round.
                   an elegant open
Mercedes
       with an elegant couple in it
The man
      in a hip three-piece linen
suit
         with shoulder-length
blond hair & sunglasses
The young blond woman so
casually coifed
               with a short skirt and
colored stockings
   on the way to his architect's
office
•The descriptions of the four
people are very visual,
making it easy to imagine the
scene. Appearances tell us a
lot. The rich couple are very
fashionable: he has an
expensive'hip three-piece
linen suit‘ while her blond hair
is 'casually coifed'
And the two scavengers up since four a.m.
                   grungy from their route
          on the way home
The older of the two with grey iron hair
                         and hunched back
        looking down like some
                gargoyle Quasimodo
And the younger of the two
            also with sunglasses & long hair
      about the same age as the Mercedes driver
On the other hand, the
garbagemen are grungy
The younger one has
sunglasses & long hair just
like the Mercedes driver,
which forces us to compare
the two.
 They are actually close together,
stuck at the red light. Does the image
suggest the 'distance' between the
lives each pair lead?

And both scavengers gazing down

                         as from a great distance
               at the cool couple
      as if they were watching some odorless TV ad
           in which everything is always possible

To the garbagemen, the

couple are almost unreal
and their lifestyle is out of
reach.
 The closing lines of the poem involve a
metaphor about the sea. If America is the
high seas, the distance between the two
vehicles is a 'small gulf'

And the very red light for an instant

It may look
              holding all four close together possible to
          as if anything at all were possible cross, but really
                                   between them it is impossible
       across that small gulf
                     in the high seas
                                   of this democracy
narrow mouth
that should be
easy to cross
  ’ a bright yellow garbage truck
            with two garbagemen in red plastic blazers’

‘grey iron hair’

•The garbagemen are riding 'a bright yellow garbage truck'

and wear 'red plastic blazers' later on we find one of them
has 'grey iron hair' (line 19). These are strong colours. The
couple in the Mercedes, though, are almost colourless: he
wears a 'linen suit' (line 11) - natural linen is a cream
colour - and they both have blond hair. Is the poet
suggesting that the garbagemen have more 'colour' in their
lives? Are the young couple actually 'colourless' and
boring?
 ‘looking down like some
                gargoyle Quasimodo’

•The older garbage man has a hunched back and

looks 'like some gargoyle This simile is striking:
Quasimodo is the Hunchback of Notre Dame in Victor
Hugo's novel. He is a tragic figure: kind and loving
despite his ugliness, he finally dies of a broken heart.
'Quasimodo' means 'almost finished' or 'half made'. Do
you think Ferlinghetti compares the dustman to
Quasimodo simply to help us imagine his appearance,
or for other reasons?
 Structure

The poem's structure is fairly free. The poet

doesn't use punctuation; instead, he begins a
new line when he wants us to pause in our
reading. This slows the poem down and gives us
time to appreciate each idea.
The poem appears very fragmented on the page.
Do you think that this might suggest the
fragmented or 'broken' nature of society?
 Language
•The poem is written in the present tense. This
gives a sense of immediacy - we feel that the
poem is happening now. It also suggests that
the huge gap between rich and poor is a
problem now, too.

The language is modern, simple and

sometimes colloquial (eg, 'cool couple'). There
are short cuts - & is used instead of 'and' (lines
12 and 24).
 What point is Ferlinghetti
making about American
democracy?

•Has it failed, because there is still an obvious

gap between rich and poor?
•Or would it be unrealistic to expect a perfect
democracy, free of class distinctions?
•What do you think the political views of the Two
Scavengers and the Two Beautiful People might
be?
 Tone

A good way to decide on the tone of a poem is

to work out how you would read it aloud.
Should this poem be read:

1. in a loud, angry tone, to protest about the failure of

democracy?
2. in a quiet tone, to express sadness that a gap
remains between rich and poor?
3. in a dramatic tone, so that we wonder what may
happen between the two pairs of people?
 Ideas

The ideas in this poem are to do with the

extreme divisions between rich people and
poor people in a supposedly equal society,
and the effect these divisions have on how
people see each other. Have a look at the
following quotations, and the suggestions
about how they fit into this theme.
 Quotation Commentary

.. the two scavengers up since four a.m. / grungy from their route
We are encouraged to sympathise with these garbagemen who work anti
social hours and who become dirty and smelly as a result. The specific detail
(four a.m.) and the expressive word grungy make us pity them.

.. the cool couple ..The elegant couple are not described in as much detail as
the garbagemen, as if the poet is less interested in them. He uses a cliché
here, the cool couple - which is how they probably think of themselves.

as if anything at all were possible / between them ..It seems that the poet would
like to believe that the two pairs he describes really could be friends - but the
as if tells us he knows that is only imaginary. He feels that democracy hasn't
succeeded because communication between the rich and poor is still
impossible.
 Nothing's changed By
Tatamkhulu Afrika

Small round hard District Six.

stones click No board says it
under my heels, is:
seeding grasses but my feet know,
thrust and my hands,
bearded seeds and the skin about
into trouser cuffs, my bones,
cans, and the soft
trodden on, crunch labouring of my
in tall, purple- lungs,
flowering, and the hot, white,
amiable weeds. inwards turning
anger of my eyes.
Brash with glass, I press my nose
name flaring like a flag, to the clear panes,
it squats know,
in the grass and weeds, before I see them,
incipient Port Jackson there will be
trees: crushed ice white
new, up-market, haute glass,
cuisine, linen falls,
guard at the gatepost, the single rose.
whites only inn.

No sign says it is:

but we know where we
belong.
Down the road,
working man's cafe
sells
bunny chows.
Take it with you, eat
it at a plastic table's
top,
wipe your fingers on
your jeans,
spit a little on the floor:
it's in the bone.
I back from the
glass,
boy again,
leaving small mean O
of small mean mouth.
Hands burn
for a stone, a bomb,
to shiver down the
glass.
Nothing's changed
 Context

This is an autobiographical poem. Tatamkhulu Afrika lived in

Cape Town's District 6, which was then a thriving mixed-race
inner-city community. People of all colours and beliefs lived
together peacefully, and Afrika says that he felt 'at home' there.
In the 1960s, as part of its policy of apartheid the government
declared District 6 a 'whites only' area, and began to evacuate the
population. Over a period of years the entire area was razed to the
ground. Most of it has never been built on.
The poem was written just after the official end of apartheid. It
was a time of hope.
 The poet returns to the wasteland that
was once his home, and relives the
anger he felt when the area was first
destroyed.

Small round hard District Six.

stones click No board says it
under my heels, is:
seeding grasses but my feet know,
thrust and my hands,
bearded seeds and the skin about
into trouser cuffs, my bones,
cans, and the soft
trodden on, crunch labouring of my
in tall, purple- lungs,
flowering, and the hot, white,
amiable weeds. inwards turning
anger of my eyes.
 He sees a new restaurant: expensive
and stylish with a guard at the
gatepost.

Brash with glass, I press my nose

name flaring like a flag, to the clear panes,
it squats know,
in the grass and weeds, before I see them,
incipient Port Jackson there will be
trees: crushed ice white
new, up-market, haute glass,
cuisine, linen falls,
guard at the gatepost, the single rose.
whites only inn.

No sign says it is:

but we know where we
belong.
He thinks about the
poverty around it,
especially the working
man's café nearby, where
people eat without plates
from a plastic tabletop.
Down the road,
working man's cafe
sells
bunny chows.
Take it with you, eat
it at a plastic table's
top,
wipe your fingers on
your jeans,
spit a little on the floor:
it's in the bone.
The deep anger he feels
makes him want to destroy
the restaurant - to smash
the glass with a stone, or a
bomb.
I back from the
glass,
boy again,
leaving small mean O
of small mean mouth.
Hands burn
for a stone, a bomb,
to shiver down the
glass.
Nothing's changed
 Important point

This makes him think that despite the changing

political situation, there are still huge inequalities
between blacks and whites. Even though South
Africa is supposed to have changed, he knows
the new restaurant is really 'whites-only'. He feels
that nothing has really changed.
 Structure

On the page, the poem is set out in six stanzas,

each of eight fairly short lines. This kind of
regularity in the lay-out creates a sense of control:
the poet is very clear about what he is feeling - no
sudden flying into a rage.
The length of the sentences varies from a whole
stanza to just two words.
 Language

The whole poem is written in the

present tense. Although he is recalling a
past experience, it is as if the poet is re-
living the experience as he writes.
It puts us 'in the poet's shoes'. It is as if we
are walking with the poet across the rough
ground. As the poem develops, it is easy
to imagine where we are walking or
standing, and what we see.
 Imagery
The images in the poem - of the wasteland
itself, the expensive restaurant, and the
working man's cafe - are sharply contrasted.

Which two images seem to you to highlight

most strongly the inequalities which the
poet observes?
 Tone

A good way to decide on the tone of a poem is

to work out how you would read it aloud.
Should this poem be read:

Angrily, to show the poet's attitude to the fact that

nothing has changed?

Or in a resigned way, as if he knows that it's

almost too much to hope that things can change?
 Tatamkhulu Afrika
wrote this about his poem:

' "Nothing's Changed" is entirely autobiographical. I can't quite

remember when I wrote this but I think it must have been about
1990. District Six was a complete waste by then, and I hadn't been
passing through it for a long time. But nothing has changed. Not
only District Six ... I mean we may have a new constitution, we
may have on the face of it a beautiful democracy, but the racism in
this country is absolutely redolent. We try to pretend to the world
that it does not exist, but it most certainly does, all day long, every
day, shocking and saddening and terrible.
Look, I don't want to sound like a prophet of doom, because I
don't feel like that at all. I am full of hope. But I won't see it in my
lifetime. It's going to take a long time. I mean in America it's taken
all this time and it's still not gone... So it will change. But not
quickly, not quickly at all.'