Who is Lawrence Ferlinghetti from The Portable Beat Reader and what is their importance? The_Portable_Beat_Reader English & Literature Lawrence Ferlinghetti | The Portable Beat Reader

Lawrence Ferlinghetti is a poet of the San Francisco Renaissance and the founder of City Lights bookstore in the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco. City Lights is the primary outlet for Beat authors in the 1950s and 1960s, and it publishes Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" in 1957. Ferlinghetti is brought to trial on obscenity charges for publishing the poem in 1957 but is found not guilty when the poem is determined not to be obscene. Ferlinghetti's own poetry often centers on his left wing politics.