Lawrence Ferlinghetti



Lawrence Ferlinghetti (born Lawrence Ferling on March 24, 1919 - February 22, 2021) is an American poet and painter, and the co-founder of City Lights Booksellers & Publishers. Author of poetry, translations, fiction, theatre, art criticism, and film narration, he is best known for A Coney Island of the Mind (New York: New Directions, 1958), a collection of poems that has been translated into nine languages, with sales of over 1,000,000 copies.

Quotes

 * The pennycandystore beyond the El is where I first fell in love with unreality
 * A Coney Island of the Mind


 * It was a face which darkness could kill in an instant
 * Pictures of the Gone World
 * Poetry is the shadow cast by our imaginations.
 * These Are My Rivers: New & Selected Poems, 1955-1993 (New Directions) ISBN: 0-0112-1273-4 0-0112-1252-1


 * I was the all-American boy, the Eagle Scout. I remember I was at my girlfriend's apartment, and there were these strange publications like The Nation and The New Republic. I started looking at them and thought, "Gee, this is weird; people saying things against America?" It was an awakening. On the East Coast, I'd never even heard of conscientious objectors.
 * San Francisco Chronicle, September 24, 2012