Lawrence Ferlinghetti biography

Profile

Lawrence Ferlinghetti was born March 24, 1919 Yonkers, New York. In 1953 he opened the City Lights Pocket Book Shop, a gathering place for the literary avant garde. In 1955 his new City Lights press published his collection Pictures of the Gone World. His collection A Coney Island of the Mind (1958), became the best-selling book by any living American poet in the second half of the 20th century.