At 101, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the last poet of the Beat Generation, has died

American poet and publisher Lawrence FerlinghettiThe last survivor of the Beat Generation, he died at the age of 101 at his home in San Francisco. The author died of lung disease, his son Lorenzo informed The Washington Post.

Ferlinghetti founded the famous City Lights bookstore and publishing house, where it was published in 1956 To scream, of Allen Ginsberg, a decision that earned him, in 1956, a public obscenity trial for his foul language on homosexuality. City Lights, in San Francisco, in the 1950s and 1960s became the heart of the avant-garde of a group of young people who, tired of a society that chose to submit to consumerism, went out on the roads, put away in the trains and, above all, he spoke with a language that was his and at the same time stolen from all those souls who got lost at night in bebop concerts and later in jazz.

This lawsuit drew everyone’s attention to Ginsberg and the rest of the Beatnik authors, such as Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs Yes Gregory Corso, among others, who formed a traveling literary group that rebelled against the country’s conservatism, experimenting with literary forms, drugs, sex and spirituality.

Episode of To scream he positions Ferlinghetti as a defender of freedom of expression and a loyal friend of artists. Over time, the bookstore and publishing house became not only a source of avant-garde books, but also a meeting place for artists rejected by the system, such as anarchists and liberal activists.

He has written dozens of books, including one of the best-selling volumes of poetry in American history: An island of the spirit of Coney (1958), a frank and often ironic critique of American culture.

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