Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Lawrence Ferlinghetti, born in 1919, American writer and publisher, a leader of the Beat Generation, an American counterculture movement of the late 1950s and early 1960s. As cofounder of the City Lights Bookstore and the City Lights Books publishing house in San Francisco, California, Ferlinghetti provided an avenue for many Beat and other avant-garde writers to have their work published. His most notable release as a publisher came in 1956 with Howl, the epic poem by American writer Allen Ginsberg. Ferlinghetti’s own poetry is noted for its lyrical and conversational tone.

Ferlinghetti was born in New York City. His father died and his mother was placed in a mental institution while he was still young, and beginning in 1920 he lived with a relative, Emily Monsanto, in France. The two returned to the United States in 1924 and lived with a family named Lawrence, for whom Monsanto worked. After Monsanto was also placed in a mental institution, Ferlinghetti remained with the Lawrences. He earned his B.A. degree from the University of North Carolina, then joined the United States Navy. He served in France from 1941 to 1945, during World War II, and was the commanding officer of a submarine chaser. He also participated in the 1944 invasion of Normandy. After leaving the service in 1945, Ferlinghetti received his M.A. degree from Columbia University in 1948 and his doctoral degree in 1951 from the Sorbonne in France. He then moved to San Francisco, where he cofounded the City Lights Bookstore and formed friendships with Ginsberg and other American poets, including Kenneth Rexroth, Gary Snyder, and Jack Kerouac.

Designed to be read out loud, some of Ferlinghetti’s poems were composed on audiotape. Poems such as the lengthy Tentative Description of a Dinner Given to Promote the Impeachment of President Eisenhower (1958) and Tyrannus Nix? (1969) illustrate Ferlinghetti’s sense of humor and satirical style, which he often used to criticize authoritarian political policies and leaders. Other common themes in his poetry include love and the symbolism of light.

Ferlinghetti’s first volume of poetry was Pictures of the Gone World (1955), published by City Lights Books. His other collections of poetry include A Coney Island of the Mind (1958), Starting from San Francisco (1967), Back Roads to Far Places (1971), Who Are We Now? (1976), Endless Life: The Selected Poems (1981), and A Far Rockaway of the Heart (1997), which is a sequel to A Coney Island of the Mind. His novels include Her (1960) and Love in the Days of Rage (1988).