Lawrence Ferlinghetti
![Lawrence Ferlinghetti at Caffe Trieste in 2012](/Images/godic/202501/13/Lawrence_Ferlinghetti_20122029.jpg")
![Lawrence Ferlinghetti at the Grolier Bookshop in Harvard Square in 1965 with Gordon Cairnie, the owner of the store at the time, photograph by Elsa Dorfman](/Images/godic/202501/13/Lawrence-ferlinghetti-by-elsa-dorfman2029.jpg")
![One of his works is intact at San Francisco's Jack Kerouac Alley, which is right next door to the City Lights Bookstore](/Images/godic/202501/13/PoetryIsTheShadowCastByOurStreetlightImaginationsByLawrenceFerlinghettiInJackKerouacAlley2029.jpg")
Lawrence Monsanto Ferlinghetti (born March 24, 1919) is an American poet, painter, liberal activist, and the co-founder of City Lights Booksellers & Publishers. Author of poetry, translations, fiction, theatre, art criticism, and film narration, he is best known for A Coney Island of the Mind (1958), a collection of poems that has been translated into nine languages, with sales of more than one million copies.