Ferlinghetti soon expanded his reach by starting City Lights Press, which published the Pocket Poets Series. But then when you have a bookstore, that’s a place where poets naturally fall into and hang out.” City Lights became a proving ground for bohemian and Beat writers and artists. “I had no idea of any poetry scene here or anything like that. Perhaps most famously, Ferlinghetti became the spiritual godfather of the Beat movement when he opened City Lights Books on a gritty hillside of San Francisco in 1953. And I am waiting for Aphrodite to grow live arms at a final disarmament conference.” He penned one of the single most popular books of poetry in print, served as San Francisco’s first poet laureate and won the National Book Award. “And I am waiting for Voznesensky to turn on with us and speak love tonight. And they have strange license plates and engines that devour America.” Lawrence Ferlinghetti was a poet, a painter, a publisher and a ceaseless political provocateur. “The scene shows fewer tumbrils, but more spaced-out citizens in painted cars. In 2007, he spoke to The Times about his life and legacy. Transcript The Last Word: Lawrence Ferlinghetti For more than 50 years, the poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti kept the bohemian and beat spirit alive at his City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco.
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