Lawrence Ferlinghetti was a poet, publisher, painter and social activist born in 1919 in New York. He served in World War II before earning degrees from the University of North Carolina, Columbia University, and the Sorbonne. In 1953, he co-founded City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco and its publishing arm, City Lights Publishers, which published seminal Beat Generation works like Allen Ginsberg's Howl and Other Poems and established Ferlinghetti as a leader of the Beat movement. As a poet, his most famous work is A Coney Island of the Mind, which has been translated into many languages. He also pursued a career in painting later in life.

1. LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI
poet, novelist, playwright,
publisher, critic, social activist,
and visual artist.
Documentary film Ferlinghetti: A Rebirth of
Wonder.

2. Bob Donlin,
Neal Cassady,
Allen Gingsberg,
Robert LaVinge
and Lawrence
Ferlinghetti

3. BIOGRAPHY
Ferlinghetti was born in
Yonkers(New York) in 1919
He earned a Bachelor of Arts
in journalism in 1941 in
University of North Carolina

4. WORLD WAR II(1939-1945)
Atomic bomb fell on Nagasaki
Served as navigator of the troop ship USS Selinur.

5. COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY AND THE SORBONNE
The G.I.Bill (Servicemen’s Readjustment Act) enabled him to study at University
Master’s degree in
English literature
in 1947 in
Columbia
University
Doctorate at
the Sorbonne
in Paris in
1950

6. In 1953, with Peter D. Martin, he founded City Lights Bookstore, the first all-paperbound bookshop in the
country
SAN FRANCISCO – CITY LIGHTS BOOKS

7. His own first book of
poems, Pictures of the
Gone World.
-City Lights Publishers began with the Pocket Poets Series
-City Lights Publishers expanded its list from poetry to include:
-prose: novels, biography, memories, essays and cultural studies
-political books
-In City Lights Bookstore Monday Night was “Blabbermouth
Night”

8. BEAT GENERATION
The Beat Generation was a group of American post-World War II writers, among them
were Jack kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso and William Burroughs.

9. entral elements of "Beat" culture:
rejection of received standards
innovations in style
se of illegal drugs
alternative sexualities
n interest in religion
rejection of materialism
eat writers and artists flocked to Greenwich
Village in New York City in the late 1950s

10. His publication of Allen Ginsberg's Howl & Other
Poems in 1956 led to his arrest
HOWL
The poem is considered to be one of the great works
of the Beat Generation

11. “Howl” Trial
On October 4, 1957, in the Municipal Court
of San Francisco, Judge Clayton W. Horn
ruled that the poem was not obscene

12. POET
- A Far Rockaway of the Heart (ND, 1997) won a silver medal, in the
category of Poetry, in the California Book Awards, sponsored by The
Commonwealth Club of California.

13. awrence Ferlinghetti, is best known as the author of his classic poetry collection, A Coney Island of the
Mind, which has been translated into nine languages.
n August 11, 1998, Ferlinghetti was named San Francisco's first poet laureate.
e received The Before Columbus Foundation "Lifetime Achievement Award" for the twentieth annual
American Book Awards for 1999.
n 2001 he was one of two American poets chosen to participate in the second celebration of UNESCO’s
World Poetry Day in Delphi, Greece
n December 2006, Ferlinghetti was named a Commandeur in the French Order of Arts and Letters.

14. PAINTER
erlinghetti began painting in Paris in 1948
alleries around the world from the Butler Museum of American Painting to Il Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome.
aintings:
"Don't Give Me"

15. "Conquer"
"Unfinished Flag of
the United States“

16. ince 2009 he has been in the Honour Committee of Immagine & Poesia, the artistic literary movement
founded in Turin, Italy, with the patronage of Aeronwy Thomas (Dylan Thomas's daughter).
0 years of painting, the exhibition held in Italy in 2010

17. JACK KEROUAC ALLEY
ack Kerouac Alley (formerly Adler Alley or Adler Place) is a one-way alleyway in Chinatown that
connects Grant Avenue and Columbus Avenue
n 1987, Lawrence Ferlinghetti was the initiator of the transformation of Jack Kerouac Alley located at
the side of his shop.

18. ”The Poet Who Brought You Some Freedom of Speech”