We had this post up for Saturday but have been experiencing over the weekend technical difficulties (now happily resolved) so forgive the belated posting
Today marks the anniversary of the publication, in 1955, of the first book in City Lights legendary Pocket Poets series – Lawrence Ferlinghetti‘s Pictures of A Gone World. The series would grow to include (as of this writing) 63 titles (the most recent being (from 2022) Will Alexander‘s Divine Blue Light (for John Coltrane). Most significant, the series contains seven (yes, seven!) Allen Ginsberg titles:
Howl and Other Poems (1956)
Kaddish and Other Poems, 1961
Reality Sandwiches, 1963
Planet News , 1968
The Fall of America, Poems of These States 1965-1971, 1972
Mind Breaths, Poems 1972-1977, 1977
& Plutonian Ode and Other Poems 1977-1980, 1982
Interestingly, the distinctive visual format derives from Kenneth Patchen‘s An Astonished Eye Looks Out Of The Air (1945) (published by Oregon’s Untide Press)
Patchen himself was rewarded with a Pocket Poets book in 1956 – Pocket Poets 3, Poems of Humor and Protest – and, again, in 1960, The Love Poems of Kenneth Patchen
The authors were not just American mavericks, however
According to Ferlinghetti: “From the beginning the aim was to publish across the board, avoiding the provincial and the academic…I had in mind rather an international, dissident, insurgent ferment”
So, French, German, Russian, Dutch…
Take a look again at his extraordinary list. We believe he fulfilled his intentions admirably.
and City Lights, thankfully, continue the vision and the spirit.