Popularly known for his collection of poems ‘A Coney Island of the Mind’, 1958. He was the co-founder of City Lights Booksellers and Publishers and moreover, he was a poet, painter and social activist. He was born on 29 March 1919 in Yonkers, New York. Furthermore, San Francisco has announced Lawrence Ferlinghetti Day on the account of his 100 birthday in March 2019.
Later in 1951, Lawrence was shifted to the west coast of the country. He never appreciated the mainstream conservative values, economic materialism and war whereas he penned down spirituality, the human condition, sexual liberation and the use of psychedelic drugs. This became famous among young people who loved to read thrill.
Besides this, he had also worked with prominent authors like Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and William S Burroughs. Lawrence had printed novels and poems by the like of them. Being the best writer of all the times, Lawrence is popularly known as “poetry’s rock star.”
He’ll be missed…
Lawrence has passed away on February 22, 2021, in San Francisco.
"The greatest poem is lyric life itself."
Our poet and hero, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, passed away on Monday, February 22nd, in the evening.
We love you, Lawrence. 💖https://t.co/h5QuVgbo4c pic.twitter.com/zJtxmIxVWz
— City Lights Books (@CityLightsBooks) February 23, 2021
“Lawrence knew he was taking a risk publishing that poem. He could have lost his business. He could have gone to jail. But he believed so much and in the quality of what Ginsberg was doing with that poem, it was definitely a groundbreaking work. For Lawrence, what inspired him the most was the way in which Ginsberg was breaking open doors within the poetic form, but also it was the indictment of the military-industrial complex and consumer culture and the stultifying atmosphere of the 1950s in the United States”, says the Elaine Katzenberger, executive director of the City Lights Trust.
“Today there is a lot of languages to describe what Lawrence was doing. I don’t think it really existed at the time”, says Katzenberger.
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