RIP, Lawrence Ferlinghetti

 

I just learned from my great friend Richard Marsh that poet and book publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti died Monday morning, February 22, at the age of 101 at his Bay Area home. We had wished him a happy 101st on March 24 last year (click HERE). Ferlinghetti appeared as Lorenzo Monsanto in Jack Kerouac's Big Sur, the devastatingly honest account of Jack's mental health decline at the hands of alcohol and his futile effort to forestall the same at Ferlinghetti's Big Sur cabin near the Bixby Canyon Bridge.

I've never see Ferlinghetti in person, although I've been to his bookstore, City Lights, in San Francisco. You can read about his life in this L.A. Times obit (click HERE).

It would do him a great honor if you read some of his poetry today, or something he published at great personal and professional risk, like Allen Ginsberg's "Howl."

You lived a long, fascinating, and accomplished life, Mr. Ferlinghetti. Well-played, sir. Rest in peace.