Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Rexroth met him whilst he was studying at the Sorbonne, and persuaded him to go to San Francisco. His bookshop ‘City Lights’ became an institution – he published ‘Howl’ and other work of Ginsberg’s, Corso (who broke in to raid the cashbox), Levertov, di Prima, Rexroth, Patchen, Kerouac (who fictionalised him in ‘Big Sur’), O’Hara (whose pockets Ferlinghetti searched for some of the poems), and others. He met Thomas (as well as Trocchi) in Paris and drank with him in San Francisco. He and Coppola hosted a pasta-and-meatballs feast for their San Francisco neighbourhood; the city named a street after him.