Beat poet, publisher, and bookseller Lawrence Ferlinghetti dies at 101

 Poet, publisher and bookseller Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who helped launch and perpetuate the Beat movement, has died. He was 101

Poet, publisher and bookseller Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who helped launch and perpetuate the Beat movement, has died. He was 101.
Ferlinghetti died at his San Francisco home on Monday, his son Lorenzo Ferlinghetti told The Associated Press on Tuesday. The cause was lung disease.
His father died in his own room, holding the hands of his son and his son's girlfriend, "as he took his last breath, his son said.

Lorenzo Ferlinghetti said his father loved Italian food and the restaurants in the North Beach neighborhood where he made his home and founded his famous bookstore. He had received the first dose of the COVID vaccine last week and was a month shy of turning 102.

Ferlinghetti was known for his City Lights bookstore in San Francisco, an essential meeting place for the Beats and other bohemians in the 1950s and beyond.

Its publishing arm released books by Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William S Burroughs and many others. The most famous release was Ginsberg's anthemic poem, Howl." It led to a 1957 obscenity trial that broke new ground for freedom of expression.

Few poets of the past 60 years were so well known or so influential. His books sold more than 1 million copies worldwide, a fantasy for virtually any of his peers, and he ran one of the world's most famous and distinctive bookstores, City Lights.