These Are My Rivers: New & Selected Poems, 1955-1993 - Softcover

Ferlinghetti, Lawrence

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0811212734 ISBN 13: 9780811212731

Publisher: New Directions, 1994

Synopsis

Lawrence Ferlinghetti, "one of our ageless radicals and true bards" (Booklist), has gathered here four decades of poetry in his inimitable everyman’s voice, including more than fifty pages of new work. The tone has deepened over the years, and he may now be seen as a true maestro in his field. Behind the irresistible air of immediacy and spontaneity lies much erudition and an antic imagination intent on subverting "the dominant paradigm." From his earliest books, including his landmark Coney Island of the Mind, Ferlinghetti has written poetry "in ways that those who see poetry as the province of the few and educated had never imagined. That strength has turned out to be lasting" (Joel Oppenheimer, N. Y. Times Books Review).

About this title

About the Author:

In 1953 Lawrence Ferlinghetti cofounded City Lights, the first paperback bookstore in the United States, a Mecca for millions. His Coney Island of the Mind is one of the best-selling volumes of poetry by any living American poet. Born in Yonkers, New York, in 1919, Ferlinghetti has received the Robert Frost Memorial Medal and the first Literarian Award of the National Book Foundation.

From Publishers Weekly:

Combining a Whitmanesque celebration of the earthy with a nod to the surrealist tradition, Ferlinghetti (Wild Dreams of a New Beginning) blasted his way into public consciousness with the 1958 publication of A Coney Island of the Mind, marking him as one of the Beat poets, though his more refined poetic sensibility showed just how different he was from what "Beat" came to mean. This compendium of work from throughout his career, including 27 new poems, reveals an ongoing interest in matters political and sexual. Unlike Ginsberg, whose Collected Poems showed an artist struggling with decline and decay, Ferlinghetti seems to maintain his calm in the face of age; "The Rebels," from a 1984 collection, shows a remarkable stylistic similarity to his famous 1958 "Constantly Risking Absurdity." But where the latter poem borders on a now-cloying self-consciousness, the former shows a subtle reflectiveness in the face of nature, as well as a recognition of his connection with readers. Regardless, it's exciting to revisit in one volume work like "I Am Waiting," "An Elegy on the Death of Kenneth Patchen" and "Endless Life" in this collection by one of America's most popular poets.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: New Directions
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0811212734
• ISBN 13: 9780811212731
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320