Vincent Ferrini - Career

Career

Vincent's move to Gloucester marked a shift in his poetry from the political and social to the personal and cosmic. Over the next 59 years, Gloucester became his place, where life and poetry combined.

In 1949, after seeing a poem in the magazine Imagi, Charles Olson paid Ferrini a visit that Olson would later characterize the visit as a "fan call". Ferrini was the catalyst that brought together Olson and poet Robert Creeley. Later Olson addressed his first “Maximus Poems” as letters to Vincent.

Ferrini’s first marriage ended in the 1960s after the death of his daughter. He later married the artist Mary Shore. When his second marriage ended in divorce he moved back to his frame shop at 126 East Main Street. The little shop became a nexus for many artists and writers who came to Gloucester.

Vincent’s view of the individual, the family, the community, and the nation working together for the common good compelled him to write editorials and letters not only to local Gloucester papers but also to The Boston Globe, The New York Times, and The Nation. At Gloucester City Hall he voiced his concerns at hundreds of council meetings. His focus was always the preservation of his city from what he characterized as "the wildfire greed that will destroy the spirit and originality of his city."

Ferrini remained an academic outsider who never made a living solely from his writing. With vigor, creativity, and compassion he kept publishing for over 67 years, producing 31 volumes of poetry, four volumes of plays, and an autobiography. Vincent is the subject of his nephew Henry Ferrini's film Poem in Action. He also is interviewed briefly in Henry's film about Vincent's colleague Charles Olson entitled Polis is this.