Lawrence (Monsanto) Ferlinghetti - Biography, Bibliography, Discography, Further reading

Poet, born in New York City, USA. He studied at the universities of North Carolina, Columbia, and the Sorbonne (1948–51), then settled in San Francisco. He taught French (1951–3), and was a founder of City Lights (1952), a bookstore and publishing house. Regarded as a founder of the Beat poetry movement, as seen in A Coney Island of the Mind (1958), he was also a playwright and novelist. Later books of poetry include Open Eye, Open Heart (1973), The Populist Manifestos (1981), and A Far Rockaway of the Heart (1997). In 2003 he received the Frost Medal, awarded annually by the Poetry Society of America for distinguished lifetime service to American poetry.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti (born Lawrence Ferling on March 24, 1919) is an American poet who is known as the co-owner of the City Lights Bookstore and publishing house, which published early literary works of the Beats, including Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg.

Biography

Early life

Ferlinghetti was born in Yonkers, New York. Ferlinghetti's Lombardy-born father was Italian and had changed his surname from "Ferlinghetti" to "Ferling", although Lawrence changed the family name back when he was 36.

Career

In 1953, Ferlinghetti and Peter D. Two years later, after Martin left for New York, Ferlinghetti started the publishing house, specialising in poetry.

Ferlinghetti had a retreat in a fairly wild area of Coastal California, Big Sur. In the novel entitled "Big Sur," by Jack Kerouac, Lawrence Ferlinghetti appears as the character Lorenzo Monsanto.

Ferlinghetti's best-known collection of poetry is A Coney Island of the Mind, which has been translated into nine languages.

Ferlinghetti's poetry often reflects his views about politics and social issues of the time, and he challenges the current thoughts about an artist's role in the world.

Ferlinghetti in pop culture

The Italian band Timoria dedicated the song Ferlinghetti Blues (from the album El Topo Grand Hotel) to the poet, where Ferlinghetti himself speaks one of his poems. Recordings of Ferlinghetti reading want ads, as featured on radio station KPFA in 1957, were recorded by Henry Jacobs and are featured on the Meat Beat Manifesto album At the Center, mistakenly credited to Kenneth Rexroth.

The American band Aztec Two-Step took their name from the poem "A Coney Island of the Mind" by Ferlinghetti

Bibliography

Pictures of the Gone World (1953) A Coney Island of the Mind (1958) The Secret Meaning of Things (1970) Landscapes of Living and Dying (1980) ISBN 0-8112-0743-9 Over All the Obscene Boundaries (1986) Americus: Part I (2004) Routines (book of short plays) Love in the Days of Rage

"The Mexican Night (Travel Journal)" (New Directions 1970)

Discography

Poetry Readings in the Cellar (with the Cellar Jazz Quintet): Kenneth Rexroth & / Assassination Raga / Big Sur Sun Sutra / Moscow in the Wilderness (1970) Fantasy Records #7014 LP, (Spoken Word)

Further reading

Constantly Risking Absurdity: The Writings of Lawrence Ferlinghetti, by Michael Skau (Whitson, 1989) Ferlinghetti: A Biography, by Neeli Cherkovski (Doubleday, 1979) Lawrence Ferlinghetti: Poet-at-Large, by Larry R.