Lawrence Ferlinghetti birthday week begins this week in San Francisco, starting this Sunday, March 17th, at 1.p.m, at The San Francisco Public Library on Larkin Street, in the Koret Auditorium, an afternoon celebration, hosted by Neeli Cherkovski – with Jack Hirschman, Aggie Falk, Kim Shuck, Linda Noel, Dean Rader, devorah major, Alejandro Murguía, Ginny Lim, and Janice Mirikitani reading Ferlinghetti poems and sharing stories.
On Tuesday (March 19), at the Italian Cultural Institute (Istituto Italiano di Culture, San Francisco) there will be the opening of the show, “Lawrence d’Italia,” an photo exhibition by Walter Pescara, curated by Mauro Aprile Zanetti, featuring “San Francisco’s first poet laureate, painter, legendary publisher and activist..performs FLUXUS poetry during his travels in Italy between 2002 and 2005.”
Wednesday (March 20), there will be a gathering at The Beat Museum – Neeli Cherkovski, Jack Hirschman, Aggie Falk, Christopher Felver and Jerry Cimino
Thursday, (March 21st) at City Lights, there’s a book-release party for Lawrence’s latest book, Little Boy. Following opening statements by Peter Maravelis, readings by Maxine Hong Kingston, Michael Krasny, Armistead Maupin, Joyce Carol Oates, Julien Poirier, Andrew Sean Greer, and Shobha Rao.
Speaking of Lawrence, don’t miss – an essential read – Garrett Caples interview with him in the current Paris Review
and Dwight Garner last Monday in the New York Times (“Lawrence Ferlighetti’s Enduring San Francisco”)
Bob Kaufman‘s legendary City Lights book Golden Sardine has been digitalized. Number two in the Poets House new Chapbooks of the Mimeo Revolution series. Read the entire book now on-line – here
Ram Dass recalls taking psilocybin with Allen Ginsberg and Timothy Leary
More “essential reading”. Valerie Miles – “Roberto Bolano and the Beat Connection” (Bolano, the great Chilean author) in The New Yorker