Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Lawrence Ferlinghetti (1919-2021)was an American poet, painter, and social activist. After serving as a Navy officer in World War II, Ferlinghetti co-founded City Lights Booksellers & Publishers in San Francisco, CA, a bookstore-publisher dedicated to world literature and progressive politics. Ferlinghetti often collaborated with Beat poets - publishing Allen Ginsberg’s Howl - and got arrested, as a result, for its “obscene” content. Ferlinghetti’s politically-charged paintings, essays, and poetry won him many awards, and speak to his belief that art needs to be witnessed by those in the public sphere.