Happy Birthday Lawrence Ferlinghetti (yesterday)

One of our inspirations.


1919 - Poet/painter/beat/publisher/anarchist & founder of
City Lights Bookstore in Frisco, Lawrence Ferlinghetti
lives, Yonkers, New York.

   Ferlinghetti opened a bookshop called the City Lights
   Pocket Book Shop. He described City Lights "as a place
   you could go in, sit down, & read books without being
   pestered to buy something." The store became a home
   for the Beat Generation of poets & writers, & Ferlinghetti
   also turned it into a publishing house — the first to publish
   Allen Ginsberg's poem "Howl". City Lights published it in
   1957 & Ferlinghetti was immediately arrested on obscenity
   charges. He won the trial & went on to publish William S.
   Burroughs, Jack Kerouac & Paul Bowles. He wrote a pair
   of novels, two volumes of plays & over 10 books of poetry.

http://www.litkicks.com/LawrenceFerlinghetti
http://recollectionbooks.com/siml/library/FerlinghettiWhite.htm