I’ve always loved his last name. He was born at the beginning of the 20th century to an immigrant couple: his mother was from France and his father from Brescia, Italy. His father changed the family’s surname to Ferling in an attempt to make them more American. When the poet known as Lawrence Ferlinghetti was registering for the service prior to WWII, he found out how Italian, how lilting, his family’s original surname was and took it back. I applaud him for that. If I had a last name as musical as his, or as Italian, I’d change it in a heartbeat (as it stands, only my first name is Italian).
© Soheyl Dahi, 2010As poet, playwright, publisher, and activist, Ferlinghetti helped to spark the 1950s San Francisco literary scene and the subsequent “Beat” movement. Like the Beats, Ferlinghetti felt strongly that art should be accessible to all people, not just a handful of highly educated intellectuals. His career has been marked by its constant challenge of the status quo; his poetry engages readers, defies popular political movements, and reflects the influence of American idiom and modern jazz. His City Lights Bookstore was a popular gathering place for San Francisco’s avant-garde writers, poets, and painters.
And for my favorite Ferlinghetti quote:
Words to live by.
get back, lauretta! 