Lawrence Ferlinghetti: ‘Most of the poets were on something, but somebody had to mind the shop’

The publisher of the Beats talks about Ginsberg the showman, the Albert hall ‘happening’ and how one of his own poets emptied the City Lights till

Lawrence Ferlinghetti interviews Allen Ginsberg outside the Albert Hall before the the International Poetry Incarnation in 1965. Photograph: John ‘Hoppy’ Hopkins

Colin Robinson

Saturday 4 July 2015 The Guardian 

Breast the brow of Stockton Street in North Beach, San Francisco, and the bay opens up before you, framed by the cream-white clapboard buildings that predominate in this old Italian neighbourhood. The island of Alcatraz prison is visible just across the water. Turn right and in a few hundred yards, on a corner, is an unprepossessing three-storey house. Press the middle bell and be prepared to wait. The occupant is old: 96. A slow footfall, and there he stands, still erect and tall: Lawrence Ferlinghetti, publisher to the Beats, poet laureate to his home town.

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