Lawrence Ferlinghetti

A Far Rockaway of the heart 21

Language: english

Translations: german (A Far Rockaway of the heart 21), hebrew (לורנס פרליגנטי פַר רוֹקַוֵוי של הלֵּב 21), russian (Из книги «На конечной остановке сердца» (21)), turkish (Kalbimin En Ücra Köşesi)

A Far Rockaway of the heart 21

O
heart
involuntary muscle

O
heart
mute lover
without a tongue
of your own

I would speak for you
whenever you
(seeing a certain someone)
feel love

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

photo © gezett.de

* 24.03.1919, Yonkers, New York, United States
† 22.02.2021, San Francisco, United States

A prominent voice of the wide-open poetry movement that began in the 1950s, Lawrence Ferlinghetti has written poetry, translation, fiction, theater, art criticism, film narration, and essays.

Ferlinghetti was born in Yonkers in 1919. He received a Master’s degree from Columbia University in 1947 and a Doctorate de l’Université de Paris (Sorbonne) in 1950. In 1953, with Peter D. Martin, he founded City Lights Bookstore, the first all-paperbound bookshop in the country, and by 1955 he had launched the City Lights publishing house. His publication of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl in 1956 led to his arrest on obscenity charges, and the trial that followed drew national attention to the San Francisco Renaissance and Beat movement writers. This landmark First Amendment case established a legal precedent for the publication of controversial work with redeeming social importance.

photo © gezett.de

Ferlinghetti’s paintings have been shown at various galleries around the world, from the Butler Museum of American Painting to Il Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome.

Ferlinghetti’s A Coney Island of the Mind continues to be the most popular poetry book in the U.S. It has been translated into nine languages, and there are nearly 1,000,000 copies in print. The author of poetry, plays, fiction, art criticism, and essays, he has a dozen books currently in print in the U.S., and his work has been translated in many countries and in many languages. His most recent books are A Far Rockaway of the Heart (1997), How to Paint Sunlight (2001), and Americus Book I (2004) published by New Directions.

Ferlinghetti died on February 22, 2021, at his home in San Francisco at age 101.

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