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

by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Overview

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).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780811212731
Publisher:	New Directions Publishing Corporation
Publication date:	10/17/1994
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.80(d)

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.

Editorial Reviews

"Tenderly lyrical, outrageously irreverent, yet always accessible."

Fort Worth Star Telegram

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. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Reading this hefty selection from 12 previous volumes, plus 50 pages of new poems, we realize how accurately the poet described himself in 1979: a man who ``thinks he's Dylan Thomas and Bob Dylan rolled together with Charlie Chaplin thrown in.'' Ferlinghetti is the foremost chronicler of our times, continually in the front lines with an elegy or antiwar poem (this collection opens with a poem written after the murder/suicide in Waco, Texas). His style is recognizable throughout--phlegmatic poems running several pages, often lacking stanza breaks, with short lines at the left margin or moving across the page as hand follows eye. He can break into a list or a rhyme. Though humor comes through in his play on words and his ability to toss in literary tidbits at inappropriate moments, it isn't all fun and games; selections from his 1984 volume show a meditative eye as the poet watches young Parisians while nostalgic about his own youth. Essential.-- Rochelle Ratner, formerly Poetry Editor, ``Soho Weekly News,'' New York

Library Journal

Ferlinghetti has been telling the truth in poems for more than four decades, and every indication is that he will continue to be heard when all the pretenders have turned to witless stone. Certainly the more than 50 pages of new work included here with his own selections of earlier work continue to maintain the faith. Published by New Directions, 80 Eighth Avenue, New York, NY 10011. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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