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 Ferlinghetti, who played a key
role in a free-speech battle after he published
Ginsberg's poem "Howl" in 1956, passed away on
Monday evening, said City Lights Books on
Twitter, adding "We love you, Lawrence."
When Ferlinghetti turned 100 on March 24, 2019,
San Francisco officials declared it Lawrence
Ferlinghetti Day. City Lights threw a party,
although the honoree did not attend due to
failing eyesight and trouble in getting around.
The publishing house Doubleday released
Ferlinghetti's "Little Boy," an experimental
novel with autobiographical touches told in a
stream-of-consciousness style, in conjunction
with his 100th birthday.
The Beat Generation first percolated in New York
in the 1950s but Kerouac, Ginsberg, William S.
Burroughs and a slew of other writers, artists,
hipsters, activists and thrill-seekers would
eventually wander West to 261 Columbus Avenue in
San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood to hang
out at City Lights.
"I keep telling people I wasn't a member of the
original Beat Generation," Ferlinghetti told the
Los Angeles Times in 2005. "I was sort of the
guy tending the store."
In 1957 Ferlinghetti, a former Eagle Scout,
found himself on the front line of a
constitutional fight when he was arrested after
publishing and selling Ginsberg's
ground-breaking "Howl and Other Poems." While it
was considered an epic achievement by Beat
peers, "Howl" shocked much of America with its
references to drugs and homosexuality and
renunciation of mainstream society.
Ferlinghetti was cleared of obscenity charges
when a judge ruled "Howl" was not obscene
because it had redeeming social value.
"It put us on the map, courtesy of the San
Francisco Police Department," Ferlinghetti said.
"It's hard to get that kind of publicity."
Ferlinghetti and Peter D. Martin, a sociology
student at the time, had founded City Lights as
a bookstore and small publisher in 1953, naming
it for Charlie Chaplin's 1931 movie. In a few
years it became a Bohemian mecca for
intellectuals, writers, dissidents, activists,
musicians and artists.
"City Lights became about the only place around
where you could go in, sit down and read books
without being pestered to buy something,"
Ferlinghetti said in a 2006 Hartford Courant
interview. "... Also, I had this idea that a
bookstore should be a center of intellectual
activity."
Ferlinghetti's works often showed an
anti-establishment or political bent. He wanted
his poems to be accessible to all.
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 "The poem should have a public
surface, by which I mean anybody who hasn't had
any education could still understand the poem,"
he told Writer's Digest in a 2010 interview.
"Then below that it should have a subjective or
subversive level, which would make the poem more
important than just a surface lyric that's just
giving you a nice picture."
In his biography, "Lawrence
Ferlinghetti: Poet at Large," Larry Smith wrote
that his subject's writing "sings with the sad
and comic music of the streets."
The most successful of Ferlinghetti's many works
was the 1958 poetry collection "A Coney Island
of the Mind," which sold more than 1 million
copies. Described by the New York Times as
"among the most popular poets of the modern
era," he published poetry through 2012 and in
2015 put out "Writing Across the Landscape:
Travel Journals," a collection of his writings
spanning more than 50 years. In
2017 a collection titled "Ferlinghetti's
Greatest Poems" was released.
Ferlinghetti was born in Yonkers, New York, a
few months after his father died. His mother
suffered from mental illness so he went to live
with a relative in France and later with another
family in New York.
He earned a journalism degree at the University
of North Carolina, served in the Navy during
World War Two, serving on a submarine-chasing
ship during the D-Day invasion, and received a
doctorate in literature from the Sorbonne.
During his Navy service, Ferlinghetti toured
Nagasaki six weeks after it was hit with a U.S.
atomic bomb. He told the San Francisco Chronicle
that in the rubble he found a teacup with what
appeared to be human flesh melted on it.
 "In that instant, I became a total pacifist," he
said.
In addition to Ginsberg, Kerouac and Burroughs,
Ferlinghetti published works by Beat figures
such as Neal Cassady, Gary Snyder, Gregory Corso
and Philip Lamantia, as well as Sam Shepard and
Charles Bukowski.
When asked how he remained prolific and lived to
100, he told NPR: "Have a good laugh and you'll
live longer."
Ferlinghetti, who also was a painter, had two
children.
(Writing and reporting by Bill Trott; Additional
reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Chicago; Editing
by Diane Craft and Matthew Lewis)
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