Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Ferlinghetti, Lawrence (1919– ), U.S. poet who was at the center of the “beat generation” writers of the 1950s. Ferlinghetti's work reflects the movement's condemnation of commercialism and middle-class values. His poetry is written in a colloquial free-verse style, and he is most known for the satiric criticism of U.S. culture in A Coney Island of the Mind (1958). More recent publications include the fiction work, Love in the Days of Rage (1988). Ferlinghetti is also the publisher and founder of City Lights, an avant-garde publisher and bookstore in San Francisco.