L2L Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Poet, artist, publisher, Lawrence Ferlinghetti celebrated his centennial in March. He did it in an unexpected way — publishing his first novel, Little Boy.

This week, Leigh Rich and P. T. Bridgeport examine the life and works of Lawrence Ferlinghetti. He is a poet (though he denies being a Beat poet), a publisher and bookseller (though he is best known as a foe of censorship), a playwright (just ask the Alligator), and now a novelist (though the novel has little plot and seems like a thinly veiled autobiography). Both Ferlinghetti and his bookstore, City Lights, survive to this day.