Interview with Lawrence Ferlinghetti of City Lights
Interview with Lawrence Ferlinghetti of City Lights
The heart and the soul of bohemian San Francisco, Lawrence Ferlinghetti has altered the cultural landscape of readers and writers both locally and globally from his perch at City Lights, at 261 Columbus Ave. in North Beach.
“I Greet You at the Beginning of a Great Career,” a new collection of letters between him and Allen Ginsberg, tracks their friendship and explores the fellowship of poets born at City Lights Bookstore and its publishing arm, City Lights Books.
Another new book, the 60th anniversary edition of City Lights Pocket Poets Anthology, brings together poets from each of the series’ 60 volumes, including Jack Kerouac and Pablo Neruda, as well as Ferlinghetti himself, who edited the volume and wrote the introduction.
“As long as there is poetry, there will be an unknown,” he writes.
Ninety-six years after his birth, there seems no stopping the author of “A Coney Island of the Mind,” which has sold more than a million copies since its publication in 1958 and which ventures as deeply into the unknown as any volume of American verse in the 20th century.
Do you go to City Lights every day?
[...] you just selected the poetry for the 60th volume in the Pocket Poets Series.
How do you feel about your correspondence with Ginsberg appearing in print?
Elaine Katzenberger at City Lights wanted them in a book.
Allen’s letters are always interesting, mine less so.
In one letter, you talk about the “romance of publishing.”
When you’re young, everything seems like a romance.
At 96, I can still feel romantic about publishing young unknown writers.
Reading the book of letters, I was surprised to discover that Gregory Corso, whose work you publish, stole money from City Lights.
Corso was drinking at Vesuvio.
People saw him break in, and they called the police.
[...] sometimes we humiliated thieves by pulling down their pants in the store.
Anyone who shows up at City Lights and says, “I’m a friend of Larry” isn’t a friend of mine.
Lawrence is a family name.
Is there anyone you would have liked to have published but didn’t?
By comparison with his work, mine is square.
[...] we have the Silicon Valley invasion of the city.
People with Mercedes-Benzes have moved into the North Beach neighborhood where I’ve lived for 36 years.
Everyone is a curmudgeon past the age of 70.
What’s your favorite part of the city?
Looking back, how do you feel about the city?
Like I’m on an extended visit and can go back to New York at any time, though New York is for the young.
People from San Francisco who go back there disappear forever.
Jonah Raskin is the author of A Terrible Beauty:
City Lights Books; 284 pages; $17.95 paperback
City Lights Pocket Poets Anthology