"Ferlingetti's 'Yachts in Sun'"

Lawrence Ferlinghetti's "Yachts in Sun" depicts the dichotomous spaces of San Francisco explored in lecture. The first space explored is that of the imperial city, with its grandeur, luxury, and the staunch inequality it promotes. Ferlinghetti then contrasts this privlidged, capatilist space with one haunted by the themes of mongrel and otherness. "Yachts in Sun" surveys the common space of San Francisco as one marked by numerous binaries such as the privliged and the marginalized, and those that feed the capitalist machine and those who rebel and in turn are trampled by it.
Througout "Yachts in Sun," Ferlinghetti employs symbolism in order to encapsulate San Francisco as an imperial city, dominated by white nativism and capitalist luxury. The yachts themselves embody a luxurious commodity, indicative of the wealth and splendor possessed a sliver of society. Furthermore, the descriptions of the "white yachts," "white sails," "the white buoy," and "white spinnakers" signifies the homogenous white upper classes, seemingly privliged due to their race. In addition, the portrayal of the white yachts "All together racing now/for the white buoy" recalls the frenetic competition that capitalism requires. Each yacht is a representative of the individual caught in the web of monoculture, striving to attain wealth. However, "Yachts in Sun" depicts such consequences of the greed and grandeur produced by capatilsim through the Alcatraz convict.
The lines "Where once drowned down/an Alcatraz con escaping" signals a shift in tone in the poem. The convict serves as a drastic contrast to the wealthy citizens on the yachet, and resembles San Francisco as a space haunted by the mongrel and the other. It is likely that the convict is not a member of the white upper crust of society. Rather, he serves as a foil, either by his different race, and most surely by his outcast role in society. The con's "bones today are sand/fifty fathoms down/still imprisoned now/in the glass of sea" indicates the social outcomes of the other or possibly the mongrel living in the American city. The convict, who did not adhere to social codes and probably was never amongst the privileged is doomed in the imperial city which does not afford him room to endure. The last line "As the so skillfull yachts/freely pass over" denotes the liberty the upper classes possess due to their wealth. "Yachts in Sun" paints a grim portrait of the liberal San Francisco as dominated by capitalist ideologies in which the winners are white and well-off, and the losers are doomed by either race, class, or refusing to adhere to society's principals.