Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the poet and bookstore owner whose publication of Allen Ginsberg’s poem
Howl in 1956 led to a landmark obscenity trial that spotlighted the Beat literary movement, has died. He was 101.
He died on Feb 22 at his home in San Francisco, according to the
Washington Post, citing his son Lorenzo. The cause was lung disease.
Ferlinghetti’s City Lights became the nation’s first all-paperback bookstore when it opened in San Francisco’s North Beach section in 1953. Since then, it has served as a gathering place for writers, artists and bohemians, from Jack Kerouac and the Beats to hippies, punk rockers and iPhone-carrying hipsters.