23 Facts About Lawrence Ferlinghetti

An author of poetry, translations, fiction, theatre, art criticism, and film narration, Ferlinghetti was best known for his second collection of poems, A Coney Island of the Mind, which has been translated into nine languages and sold over a million copies.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti was born on March 24,1919, in Yonkers, New York.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti was raised by an aunt, and later by foster parents.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti began his journalism career by writing sports for The Daily Tar Heel, and published his first short stories in Carolina Magazine, for which Thomas Wolfe had written.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti served in the US Navy throughout World War II, as the captain of a submarine chaser in the Normandy invasion.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti met his wife-to-be, Selden Kirby-Smith, the granddaughter of Edmund Kirby-Smith, in 1946 aboard a ship en route to France.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti moved to San Francisco in 1951 and founded City Lights in North Beach in 1953, in partnership with Peter D Martin, a student at San Francisco State University.

In 1955 Lawrence Ferlinghetti bought Martin's share and established a publishing house with the same name.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti published many of the Beat poets and is considered by some as a Beat poet as well.

Critics have noted that Lawrence Ferlinghetti's poetry often takes on a highly visual dimension as befits this poet who was a painter.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti self-identified as a philosophical anarchist, regularly associated with other anarchists in North Beach, and sold Italian anarchist newspapers at the City Lights Bookstore.

In 1998, in his inaugural address as Poet Laureate of San Francisco, Lawrence Ferlinghetti urged San Franciscans to vote to remove a portion of the earthquake-damaged Central Freeway and replace it with a boulevard.

Alongside his bookselling and publishing, Lawrence Ferlinghetti painted for 60 years and much of his work was displayed in galleries and museums throughout the United States.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti responded to this act by painting a humorous retort on areas of the canvas where censorship had occurred.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti presented his idea to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors calling for repavement and renewal.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti died of interstitial lung disease on February 22,2021, at his home in San Francisco at age 101.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti received numerous awards, including the Los Angeles Times' Robert Kirsch Award, the BABRA Award for Lifetime Achievement, the National Book Critics Circle Ivan Sandrof Award for Contribution to American Arts and Letters, and the ACLU Earl Warren Civil Liberties Award.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti won the Premio Taormina in 1973, and thereafter was awarded the Premio Camaiore, the Premio Flaiano, the Premio Cavour, among other honors in Italy.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti was named San Francisco's Poet Laureate in August 1998 and served for two years.

In 2008, Lawrence Ferlinghetti was awarded the John Ciardi Award for Lifetime Achievement in Poetry.

In 2012, Lawrence Ferlinghetti was awarded the inaugural Janus Pannonius International Poetry Prize from the Hungarian PEN Club.

In declining, Lawrence Ferlinghetti cited his opposition to the "right-wing regime" of Prime Minister Orban, and his opinion that the ruling Hungarian government under Mr Orban is curtailing civil liberties and freedom of speech for the people of Hungary.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti recited the poem Loud Prayer at The Band's final performance; the concert was filmed by Martin Scorsese and released as a documentary entitled The Last Waltz, which included Lawrence Ferlinghetti's recitation.