Lawrence Ferlinghetti--born March 24, 1919--still alive
From ending of "The Astonished Heart":
"There is a great crowded bluff
in Lawrence Kansas
that looks a long way
into the astonished heart
of America."
Published in "Open Eye, Open Heart" (1973) and "These Are My Rivers: New & Selected Poems 1955-1993" (1993)
The picture is during a graduation ceremony at the University of Kansas looking south from the football stadium to the side of Mount Oread. When I lived in the J. R. Pearson dorm, I often liked to walk across this area from the Union and nearby classroom buildings. Later on, I sometimes would buy a submarine sandwich from the Yellow Sub and sit on this hillside to look north at the valley where the Kansas River runs. This was especially great when someone was playing the carillon in the campanile. But I don't think I ever took a picture of that view. Most of the time I rarely I saw anyone else there.
There aren't many places in Lawrence that could be called a bluff. I think he meant somewhere on this large hill on which the heart of the campus sits or by the riverbanks. But I don't think the latter are high enough to be bluffs. I now wish I'd contacted him when he was younger to see if a specific site influenced him, maybe to place a small monument to poetry with this line or the entire poem inscribed on it.
