These Are My Rivers

In the year of his demise I thought I should honour Ferlinghetti's life and vision by reading a selected poems. So many of his poems have the lightness of the wings of fancy lifting off the pavement of pedestrian common sense. So often he reorientates me and reminds me of the spirit of play and freedom that can be crushed out of us by duty and suburbia. Thanks for your legacy, I treasure it.

When I took my first poetry writing class in college, my professor told me that my work reminded him of Lawrence Ferlinghetti. At the time, I hadn't read anything by Ferlinghetti, but being compared to someone who was a contemporary and friend of Ginsberg and Kerouac was fantastic! I immediately started reading some of his work, and eventually picked up this volume so I would have more to look through. It took me a while to read it, but here we are.

This is a fantastic collection! There are writings from almost each period of Ferlinghetti's career, samples taken from other works he has released over time. There seems to be a focus on travel and art in many of these works, and one wonders if this collection also works as a bit of show more biography of the man, pinpointing where he was and what his mind was set to during each period of his life.

There are poems in here that get my blood boiling with creativity. He makes me want to write, to create. show less

A very enjoyable and satisfying read. Ferlinghetti's poems barge into picture themes with nuance and wit. Most of the poems were written in the 70s and 80s and are just as relevant as they were today. Many deal with maintaining humanity in a the face of dizzying technological change.

An interesting assembly of poems. The content, and imagery, ranges from the periods that the poems are taken from. The new poems, at the beginning, I found were not the strongest. Those comes from his other collections. Still, it was a good read and I'd recommend it for those interested in poetry.

pick this collection up!!!