City Lights is an
independent bookstore
An independent bookstore is a retail bookstore which is independently owned. Usually, independent stores consist of only a single actual store (although there are some multi-store independents). They may be structured as sole proprietorships, cl ...
-
publisher
Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...
combination in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
,
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
, that specializes in
world literature
World literature is used to refer to the total of the world's national literature and the circulation of works into the wider world beyond their country of origin. In the past, it primarily referred to the masterpieces of Western European lit ...
, the arts, and
progressive politics
Progressivism holds that it is possible to improve human societies through political action. As a political movement, progressivism seeks to advance the human condition through social reform based on purported advancements in science, techn ...
. It also houses the
nonprofit
A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...
City Lights Foundation, which publishes selected titles related to San Francisco culture. It was founded in 1953 by poet
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Lawrence Monsanto Ferlinghetti (March 24, 1919 – February 22, 2021) was an American poet, painter, social activist, and co-founder of City Lights Booksellers & Publishers. The author of poetry, translations, fiction, theatre, art criticism, an ...
and
Peter D. Martin
Peter Dean Martin (1923 – March 3, 1988) was a college professor and bookstore owner, known for his founding of the City Lights Bookstore. He was the son of Carlo Tresca and Sabina 'Bina' Flynn, and the nephew of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn.
Backgro ...
(who left two years later). Both the store and the publishers became widely known following the obscenity trial of Ferlinghetti for publishing
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...
's influential collection ''
Howl and Other Poems
''Howl and Other Poems'' is a collection of poetry by Allen Ginsberg published November 1, 1956. It contains Ginsberg's most famous poem, " Howl", which is considered to be one of the principal works of the Beat Generation as well as " A Super ...
'' (City Lights, 1956).
Nancy Peters
Nancy Joyce Peters (born October 3, 1936) is an American publisher, writer, and co-owner with Lawrence Ferlinghetti of City Lights Books and Publishers in San Francisco until Ferlinghetti's 2021 death.
Biography
Nancy Peters was born in Seattle, a ...
started working there in 1971 and retired as executive director in 2007. In 2001, City Lights was made an official historic landmark. City Lights is located at 261 Columbus Avenue. While formally located in
Chinatown
A Chinatown () is an ethnic enclave of Chinese people located outside Greater China, most often in an urban setting. Areas known as "Chinatown" exist throughout the world, including Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Africa and Austra ...
, it self-identifies as part of immediately adjacent
North Beach.
History
Founding and early years
City Lights was the inspiration of Peter D. Martin, who relocated from
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
to
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
in the 1940s to teach sociology. He first used ''City Lights'', in homage to
the Chaplin film, in 1952 as the title of a magazine, publishing early work by such key Bay Area writers as
Philip Lamantia
Philip Lamantia (October 23, 1927 – March 7, 2005) was an American poet and lecturer. His poems were often visionary, ecstatic, terror-filled, and erotic, exploring the subconscious world of dreams and linking it to daily experiences, while so ...
,
Pauline Kael
Pauline Kael (; June 19, 1919 – September 3, 2001) was an American film critic who wrote for ''The New Yorker'' magazine from 1968 to 1991. Known for her "witty, biting, highly opinionated and sharply focused" reviews, Kael's opinions oft ...
,
Jack Spicer
Jack Spicer (January 30, 1925 – August 17, 1965) was an American poet often identified with the San Francisco Renaissance. In 2009, ''My Vocabulary Did This to Me: The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer'' won the American Book Award for poetry. H ...
,
Robert Duncan, and
Ferlinghetti
Lawrence Monsanto Ferlinghetti (March 24, 1919 – February 22, 2021) was an American poet, painter, social activist, and co-founder of City Lights Booksellers & Publishers. The author of poetry, translations, fiction, theatre, art criticism, an ...
himself, as "Lawrence Ferling". A year later, Martin used the name to establish the first all-paperback bookstore in the U.S., at the time an audacious idea.
The site was a tiny storefront in the triangular Artigues Building located at 261 Columbus Avenue, near the intersection of Broadway in
North Beach. Built on the ruins of a previous building destroyed in the fire following the 1906 earthquake, the building was designed by Oliver Everett in 1907 and named for its owners. City Lights originally shared the building with a number of other shops. It gradually gained more space whenever one of the other shops became vacant, and eventually occupied the entire building.
In 1953, as Ferlinghetti was walking past the Artigues Building, he encountered Martin out front hanging up a sign that announced a "Pocket Book Shop." He introduced himself as a contributor to Martin's magazine ''City Lights'', and told him he had always wanted a bookstore. Before long he and Martin agreed to a partnership. Each man invested $500. Soon after they opened they hired
Shig Murao
Shigeyoshi "Shig" Murao (村尾 重芳, ''Murao Shigeyoshi'', b. December 8, 1926 – d. October 18, 1999) was a Japanese-American bookseller who is mainly remembered as the City Lights manager and clerk who was arrested on June 3, 1957, for sell ...
as a clerk. Murao worked without pay for the first few weeks, but eventually became manager of the store and was a key element in creating the unique feel of City Lights. In 1955, Martin sold his share of the business to Ferlinghetti for $1000, moved to New York and started the New Yorker Bookstore which specialized in cinema.
In the late 1960s, Ferlinghetti hired Joseph Wolberg, former philosophy professor at SUNY Buffalo, to manage the bookstore. Wolberg is credited with organizing the once chaotically messy shelves and for convincing a cheap Ferlinghetti to install anti-shoplifting metal detectors. Through his connection to City Lights, Wolberg produced records for Beat poets such as
Charles Bukowski
Henry Charles Bukowski ( ; born Heinrich Karl Bukowski, ; August 16, 1920 – March 9, 1994) was a German-American poet, novelist, and short story writer. His writing was influenced by the social, cultural, and economic ambience of his adopted ...
and
Shel Silverstein
Sheldon Allan Silverstein (; September 25, 1930 – May 10, 1999) was an American writer, poet, cartoonist, singer / songwriter, musician, and playwright. Born and raised in Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, Silverstein briefly attended universit ...
.
The logo for ''City Lights Bookstore'' is a medieval guild mark, chosen by Ferlinghetti, from
Rudolf Koch
Rudolf Koch (20 November 1876 – 9 April 1934) was a German type designer, professor, and a master of lettering, calligraphy, typography and illustration. Commonly known for his typefaces created for the Klingspor Type Foundry, his most widel ...
's ''The Book of Signs''.
1970s and 1980s
In 1971, Ferlinghetti persuaded Nancy Peters – who was working at the
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...
– to join in a project with him, after which she began full-time work at City Lights.
[Morgan, Bill]
"City Lights bookshop tour"
City Lights. Retrieved 7 August 2007. She said:
In 1984, the business was in a financial crisis and Peters became a co-owner of it.
[ Ferlinghetti credits her for the subsequent survival and growing success of the business.][Lynell, George (2007)]
"City Lights Books"
''Los Angeles Times'', 22 April 2007. Retrieved 7 August 2007. In 1999, with Ferlinghetti, she bought the building they worked in.
2000s
In 2001, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors is the legislative body within the government of the City and County of San Francisco.
Government and politics
The City and County of San Francisco is a consolidated city-county, being simultaneously a c ...
made City Lights an official historic landmark – the first time this had been granted to a business, rather than a building – citing the organization for "playing a seminal role in the literary and cultural development of San Francisco and the nation." It recognized the bookstore as "a landmark that attracts thousands of book lovers from all over the world because of its strong ambiance of alternative culture and arts", and it acknowledged City Lights Publishers for its "significant contribution to major developments in post-World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
literature."
The building itself, with its clerestory
In architecture, a clerestory ( ; , also clearstory, clearstorey, or overstorey) is a high section of wall that contains windows above eye level. Its purpose is to admit light, fresh air, or both.
Historically, ''clerestory'' denoted an upper l ...
windows and small mezzanine balcony, also qualified as a city landmark because of its "distinctive characteristics typical of small commercial buildings constructed following the 1906 earthquake and fire." The landmark designation mandates the preservation of certain external features of the building and its immediate surroundings. Peters commented (referring to the effect of dotcom and computer firms), "The old San Francisco is under attack to the point where it's disappearing."
By 2003, the store had 15 employees. Peters estimated that the year's profits would be only "maybe a thousand dollars." In 2007, after 23 years as executive director, she stepped down from the post, which was filled by Elaine Katzenberger; Peters remained on the board of directors.[ Peters said of her work at City Lights:
]
Present
City Lights sells a curated selection of new books, specializing in literature, cultural studies, world history, and politics. It offers three floors of new-release hardcovers and paperbacks from all major publishers, as well as a large selection of titles from smaller, independent publishers. It hosts weekly events in its City Lights LIVE programming series, which switched to virtual events in 2020 due to the pandemic. City Lights is a member of the American Booksellers Association
The American Booksellers Association (ABA) is a non-profit trade association founded in 1900 that promotes independent bookstores in the United States. ABA's core members are key participants in their communities' local economy and culture, and t ...
.
Publishing
In 1955
Events January
* January 3 – José Ramón Guizado becomes president of Panama.
* January 17 – , the first nuclear-powered submarine, puts to sea for the first time, from Groton, Connecticut.
* January 18– 20 – Battle of Yijian ...
, Ferlinghetti launched City Lights Publishers with his own ''Pictures of the Gone World'', the first number in the Pocket Poets Series. This was followed in quick succession by ''Thirty Spanish Poems of Love and Exile'' translated by Kenneth Rexroth
Kenneth Charles Marion Rexroth (1905–1982) was an American poet, translator, and critical essayist. He is regarded as a central figure in the San Francisco Renaissance, and paved the groundwork for the movement. Although he did not consider h ...
and ''Poems of Humor & Protest'' by Kenneth Patchen
Kenneth Patchen (December 13, 1911January 8, 1972) was an American poet and novelist. He experimented with different forms of writing and incorporated painting, drawing, and jazz music into his works, which have been compared with those of Will ...
, but it was the impact of the fourth volume, ''Howl and Other Poems
''Howl and Other Poems'' is a collection of poetry by Allen Ginsberg published November 1, 1956. It contains Ginsberg's most famous poem, " Howl", which is considered to be one of the principal works of the Beat Generation as well as " A Super ...
'' ( 1956) by Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...
that brought national attention to the author and publisher.
''City Lights Journal'' published poems of the Indian Hungry generation
The Hungry Generation ( bn, হাংরি জেনারেশান) was a literary movement in the Bengali language launched by what is known today as the Hungryalist quartet, ''i.e.'' Shakti Chattopadhyay, Malay Roy Choudhury, Samir Royc ...
writers when the group faced police case in Kolkata. The group got worldwide publicity thereafter.
Apart from Ginsberg's seven collections, a number of the early Pocket Poets volumes brought out by Ferlinghetti have attained the status of classics, including ''True Minds'' by Marie Ponsot
Marie Ponsot (née Birmingham; April 6, 1921 – July 5, 2019) was an American poet, literary critic, essayist, teacher, and translator. Her awards and honors included the National Book Critics Circle Award, Delmore Schwartz Memorial Prize, the ...
(1957
1957 ( MCMLVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1957th year of the Common Era (CE) and ''Anno Domini'' (AD) designations, the 957th year of the 2nd millennium, the 57th year of the 20th century, and the 8th y ...
), ''Here and Now'' by Denise Levertov
Priscilla Denise Levertov (24 October 1923 – 20 December 1997) was a British-born naturalised American poet. She was a recipient of the Lannan Literary Award for Poetry.
Early life and influences
Levertov was born and grew up in Ilford, Ess ...
( 1958), ''Gasoline'' ( 1958) by Gregory Corso
Gregory Nunzio Corso (March 26, 1930 – January 17, 2001) was an American poet and a key member of the Beat movement. He was the youngest of the inner circle of Beat Generation writers (with Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burrou ...
, ''Selected Poems'' by Robert Duncan (1959
Events January
* January 1 - Cuba: Fulgencio Batista flees Havana when the forces of Fidel Castro advance.
* January 2 - Lunar probe Luna 1 was the first man-made object to attain escape velocity from Earth. It reached the vicinity of E ...
), '' Lunch Poems'' (1964
Events January
* January 1 – The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland is dissolved.
* January 5 - In the first meeting between leaders of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches since the fifteenth century, Pope Paul VI and Patriarch ...
) by Frank O'Hara
Francis Russell "Frank" O'Hara (March 27, 1926 – July 25, 1966) was an American writer, poet, and art critic. A curator at the Museum of Modern Art, O'Hara became prominent in New York City's art world. O'Hara is regarded as a leading figure i ...
,'' Selected Poems'' ( 1967) by Philip Lamantia
Philip Lamantia (October 23, 1927 – March 7, 2005) was an American poet and lecturer. His poems were often visionary, ecstatic, terror-filled, and erotic, exploring the subconscious world of dreams and linking it to daily experiences, while so ...
, ''Poems to Fernando'' ( 1968) by Janine Pommy Vega
Janine Pommy Vega (February 5, 1942 – December 23, 2010) was an American poet associated with the Beats.
Early life
Janine Pommy was born in Jersey City, New Jersey.Hunt, Ken (February 22, 2011)"Obituary: Janine Pommy Vega: Beat poet and clo ...
, ''Golden Sardine'' ( 1969) by Bob Kaufman
Robert Garnell Kaufman (April 18, 1925 – January 12, 1986) was an American Beat poet and surrealist as well as a jazz performance artist and satirist. In France, where his poetry had a large following, he was known as the "black American ...
, and ''Revolutionary Letters'' (1971 *
The year 1971 had three partial solar eclipses ( February 25, July 22 and August 20) and two total lunar eclipses (February 10, and August 6).
The world population increased by 2.1% this year, the highest increase in history.
Events
Ja ...
) by Diane di Prima
Diane di Prima (August 6, 1934October 25, 2020) was an American poet, known for her association with the Beat movement. She was also an artist, prose writer, and teacher. Her magnum opus is widely considered to be ''Loba'', a collection of poem ...
.
In 1967 the publishing operation moved to 1562 Grant Avenue. Dick McBride ran this part of the business with his brother Bob McBride and Martin Broadley for several years.
In 1971, Nancy Peters
Nancy Joyce Peters (born October 3, 1936) is an American publisher, writer, and co-owner with Lawrence Ferlinghetti of City Lights Books and Publishers in San Francisco until Ferlinghetti's 2021 death.
Biography
Nancy Peters was born in Seattle, a ...
joined Ferlinghetti as co-editor and publisher. He praised her as "one of the best literary editors in the country.". Presently, the publisher is Elaine Katzenberger, who is also the director of the bookstore.
Over the years, the press has published a wide range of poetry and prose, fiction and nonfiction, and works in translation. In addition to books by Beat Generation
The Beat Generation was a literary subculture movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-war era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized by Silent Generatio ...
authors, the press publishes literary work by such authors as Charles Bukowski
Henry Charles Bukowski ( ; born Heinrich Karl Bukowski, ; August 16, 1920 – March 9, 1994) was a German-American poet, novelist, and short story writer. His writing was influenced by the social, cultural, and economic ambience of his adopted ...
, Georges Bataille
Georges Albert Maurice Victor Bataille (; ; 10 September 1897 – 9 July 1962) was a French philosopher and intellectual working in philosophy, literature, sociology, anthropology, and history of art. His writing, which included essays, novels, ...
, Rikki Ducornet
Rikki Ducornet (; born Erica DeGre; April 19, 1943) is an American writer, poet, and artist. Her work has been described as “linguistically explosive and socially relevant,” and praised for “deploy ngtactics familiar to the historical avan ...
, Paul Bowles
Paul Frederic Bowles (; December 30, 1910November 18, 1999) was an American expatriate composer, author, and translator. He became associated with the Moroccan city of Tangier, where he settled in 1947 and lived for 52 years to the end of his ...
, Sam Shepard
Samuel Shepard Rogers III (November 5, 1943 – July 27, 2017) was an American actor, playwright, author, screenwriter, and director whose career spanned half a century. He won 10 Obie Awards for writing and directing, the most by any write ...
, Andrei Voznesensky
Andrei Andreyevich Voznesensky (russian: link=no, Андре́й Андре́евич Вознесе́нский, 12 May 1933 – 1 June 2010) was a Soviet and Russian poet and writer who had been referred to by Robert Lowell as "one of the ...
, Nathaniel Mackey
Nathaniel Mackey is an American poet, novelist, anthologist, literary critic and editor. He is the Reynolds Price Professor of Creative Writing at Duke University and a Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets. Mackey is currently teaching a ...
, Alejandro Murguía, Pier Paolo Pasolini
Pier Paolo Pasolini (; 5 March 1922 – 2 November 1975) was an Italian poet, filmmaker, writer and intellectual who also distinguished himself as a journalist, novelist, translator, playwright, visual artist and actor. He is considered one of ...
, Ernesto Cardenal
Ernesto Cardenal Martínez (20 January 1925 – 1 March 2020) was a Nicaraguan Catholic priest, poet, and politician. He was a liberation theologian and the founder of the primitivist art community in the Solentiname Islands, where he lived fo ...
, Daisy Zamora, Guillermo Gómez-Peña
Guillermo Gómez-Peña is a Mexican/Chicano performance artist, writer, activist, and educator. Gómez-Peña has created work in multiple media, including performance art, experimental radio, video, photography and installation art. His fifteen b ...
, Juan Goytisolo, Anne Waldman
Anne Waldman (born April 2, 1945) is an American poet.
Since the 1960s, Waldman has been an active member of the Outrider experimental poetry community as a writer, performer, collaborator, professor, editor, scholar, and cultural/political activ ...
, André Breton
André Robert Breton (; 19 February 1896 – 28 September 1966) was a French writer and poet, the co-founder, leader, and principal theorist of surrealism. His writings include the first ''Surrealist Manifesto'' (''Manifeste du surréalisme'') o ...
, Kamau Daáood, Masha Tupitsyn, and Rebecca Brown. In 1965, the press published an anthology of texts by Antonin Artaud
Antoine Marie Joseph Paul Artaud, better known as Antonin Artaud (; 4 September 1896 – 4 March 1948), was a French writer, poet, dramatist, visual artist, essayist, actor and theatre director. He is widely recognized as a major figure of the E ...
, edited by Jack Hirschman
Jack Hirschman (December 13, 1933 – August 22, 2021) was an American poet and social activist who wrote more than 100 volumes of poetry and essays.
Biography
Hirschman was born in New York City to a Russian Jewish family. He received a B.A. ...
.[Artaud, Antonin. ''Antonin Artaud Anthology'', edited by Jack Hirschman. San Francisco: City Lights, 1965. ]
In 2014, the press published its first New York Times bestselling book, ''Rad American Women A-Z'', the press's first book for children, by Kate Schatz
Kate Schatz is an American feminist writer, public speaker, activist, and educator. Along with Emmy-winning director W. Kamau Bell she co-authored ''Do the Work: An Antiracist Activity Book'' that was published by Workman in 2022. It spent 3 weeks ...
with illustrations by Miriam Klein Stahl. Since then, other critically acclaimed books of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry include ''Man Alive'' by Thomas Page McBee, ''Notes on the Assemblage'' by Juan Felipe Herrera
Juan Felipe Herrera (born in December 27, 1948) is an American poet, performer, writer, cartoonist, teacher, and activist. Herrera was the 21st United States Poet Laureate from 2015 to 2017.
Herrera's experiences as the child of migrant farmers ...
(who was U.S. Poet Laureate at the time), ''Dated Emcees'' by Chinaka Hodge
Chinaka Hodge (born 1984/1985) is an American poet, educator, playwright and screenwriter. She has received national recognition for her publications, especially her artistic work on gentrification.
Biography
Chinaka Hodge was born in Oakland ...
, an anniversary edition of ''The Gilda Stories'' by Jewelle Gomez
Jewelle Gomez (born September 11, 1948) is an American author, poet, critic and playwright. She lived in New York City for 22 years, working in public television, theater, as well as philanthropy, before relocating to the West Coast. Her writing ...
, ''Incidents of Travel in Poetry'' by Frank Lima, ''Retablos'' by Octavio Solis
Octavio Solis (born 1958) is an American playwright and director whose plays have been produced and show theaters and small companies across the United States. He has written over 25 plays, including his most famous works: ''Lydia'', ''Santos & ...
, ''Poso Wells'' by Gabriela Alemán, ''Under the Dome'' by Jean Daive
Jean Daive (born 13 May 1941) is a French poet and translator. He is the author of novels, collections of poetry and has translated work by Paul Celan and Robert Creeley among others.
He has edited encyclopedias, worked as a radio journalist an ...
, and ''Funeral Diva'' by Pamela Sneed
By or BY may refer to:
Places
* By, Doubs, France, a commune
* By, Norway, a village
Codes
* Belarus ISO country code
** .by, country-code top-level domain for Belarus
* Burundi FIPS Pub 10-4 and obsolete NATO digram country code
* TUI Airwa ...
, among others. The press has also published two books by Tongo Eisen-Martin, Poet Laureate of San Franicisco.
Associated from the outset with radical left-wing politics and issues of social justice, City Lights has in recent years augmented its list of political non-fiction, publishing books by Angela Y. Davis
Angela Yvonne Davis (born January 26, 1944) is an American political activist, philosopher, academic, scholar, and author. She is a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. A feminist and a Marxist, Davis was a longtime member of ...
, Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is ...
, Michael Parenti
Michael John Parenti (born September 30, 1933) is an American political scientist, academic historian and cultural critic who writes on scholarly and popular subjects. He has taught at universities as well as run for political office. Parenti i ...
, Howard Zinn
Howard Zinn (August 24, 1922January 27, 2010) was an American historian, playwright, philosopher, socialist thinker and World War II veteran. He was chair of the history and social sciences department at Spelman College, and a political scien ...
, Mumia Abu-Jamal
Mumia Abu-Jamal (born Wesley Cook; April 24, 1954) is an American political activist and journalist who was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1982 for the 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. While on death r ...
, Ward Churchill
Ward LeRoy Churchill (born 1947) is an American author and political activist. He was a professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado Boulder from 1990 until 2007. , Tim Wise
Timothy Jacob Wise (born October 4, 1968) is an American activist and writer on the topic of race. He is a consultant who provides anti-racism lectures to institutions.
Early life and education
Wise was born in Nashville, Tennessee, to Michael ...
, Roy Scranton
Roy Scranton (born 1976) is an American writer of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. His essays, journalism, short fiction, and reviews have appeared in ''The New York Times, Rolling Stone, The Nation, Dissent, LIT, Los Angeles Review of Books, ...
, John Gibler
John Gibler is an American journalist who predominantly writes from and about Mexico. He is the author of '' Mexico Unconquered: Chronicles of Power and Revolt'' and '' To Die in Mexico: Dispatches from Inside the Drug War.'' He is also correspo ...
, Todd Miller, Clarence Lusane
Clarence Lusane (born 1953) is an American author, activist, lecturer and freelance journalist. His most recent major work is his book '' The Black History of the White House''.
Background
Clarence Lusane received his Ph.D. in political science ...
, Ralph Nader
Ralph Nader (; born February 27, 1934) is an American political activist, author, lecturer, and attorney noted for his involvement in consumer protection, environmentalism, and government reform causes.
The son of Lebanese immigrants to the Un ...
, Henry A. Giroux, and Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz (born September 10, 1938) is an American historian, writer, and activist, known for her 2014 book ''An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States''.
Early life and education
Born in San Antonio, Texas, in 1938 to ...
.
''Howl''
Ferlinghetti had heard Ginsberg read ''Howl'' in 1955 at the Six Gallery; the next day, he offered to publish it along with other shorter poems. William Carlos Williams
William Carlos Williams (September 17, 1883 – March 4, 1963) was an American poet, writer, and physician closely associated with modernism and imagism.
In addition to his writing, Williams had a long career as a physician practicing both pedia ...
— who was Ginsberg's childhood Pediatrician and himself a future Pocket Poet with a 1957 edition of his early modernist classic, ''Kora in Hell'' ( 1920) — was recruited for an introduction, perhaps to lend literary justification to ''Howls depictions of drug use and homosexuality. Prior to publication, Ferlinghetti had asked, and received, assurance from the American Civil Liberties Union
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...
that the organization would defend him, should he be prosecuted for obscenity.
Published in November 1956, ''Howl'' was not long in generating controversy. In March 1957, local Collector of Customs Chester MacPhee seized a shipment from England of the book's second printing on grounds of obscenity, but he was compelled to release the books when federal authorities refused to confirm his charge. But the troubles were just beginning, for in June of that year, local police raided City Lights Bookstore and arrested store manager Shigeyoshi Murao on the charge of offering an obscene book for sale. Ferlinghetti, then in Big Sur
Big Sur () is a rugged and mountainous section of the Central Coast of California between Carmel and San Simeon, where the Santa Lucia Mountains rise abruptly from the Pacific Ocean. It is frequently praised for its dramatic scenery. Big Sur ha ...
, turned himself in on his return to San Francisco. Both faced a possible $500 fine and a 6-month sentence. (Ginsberg was in Tangiers at the time, and not charged.) The ACLU posted bail, assigned defense counsel Albert Bendich to the case, and secured the pro bono services of famous criminal defense lawyer J. W. Ehrlich.
The municipal court trial, presided over by Judge Clayton W. Horn, ran from August 16 to September 3, 1957. The charges against Murao were dismissed since it couldn't be proved that he knew what was in the book. Then, during the trial of Ferlinghetti, respected writers and professors testified for the defense. Judge Horn rendered his precedent-setting verdict, declaring that ''Howl'' was not obscene and that a book with "the slightest redeeming social importance" merits First Amendment
First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1).
First or 1st may also refer to:
*World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement
Arts and media Music
* 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...
protection. Horn's decision established the precedent that paved the way for the publication of such hitherto banned books as D. H. Lawrence
David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) was an English writer, novelist, poet and essayist. His works reflect on modernity, industrialization, sexuality, emotional health, vitality, spontaneity and instinct. His best-k ...
's ''Lady Chatterley's Lover
''Lady Chatterley's Lover'' is the last novel by English author D. H. Lawrence, which was first published privately in 1928, in Italy, and in 1929, in France. An unexpurgated edition was not published openly in the United Kingdom until 1960, w ...
'' and Henry Miller
Henry Valentine Miller (December 26, 1891 – June 7, 1980) was an American novelist. He broke with existing literary forms and developed a new type of semi-autobiographical novel that blended character study, social criticism, philosophical ref ...
's ''Tropic of Cancer
The Tropic of Cancer, which is also referred to as the Northern Tropic, is the most northerly circle of latitude on Earth at which the Sun can be directly overhead. This occurs on the June solstice, when the Northern Hemisphere is tilted toward ...
''. The media attention resulting from the trial stimulated national interest, and, by 1958, there were 20,000 copies in print. Today there are over a million. Ginsberg continued to publish his major books of poetry with the press for the next 25 years. Even after the publication by Harper & Row
Harper is an American publishing house, the flagship imprint of global publisher HarperCollins based in New York City.
History
J. & J. Harper (1817–1833)
James Harper and his brother John, printers by training, started their book publishin ...
of his ''Collected Poems'' in 1980, he would continue his warm association with City Lights, which served as his local base of operations, for the rest of his life.
See also
* List of San Francisco Designated Landmarks
This is a list of San Francisco Designated Landmarks. In 1967, the city of San Francisco, California adopted Article 10 of the Planning Code, providing the city with the authority to designate and protect landmarks from inappropriate alterations. ...
Notes and references
External links
*
Landmark status likely for beatnik-era bookstore
a June 2001 CNN
CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...
article
And the Beats Go On
a June 2001 article from the ''San Francisco Chronicle
The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and M. H. de Young, Michael H. de ...
''
Poetry Landmark: The City Lights Bookstore
, from the website of the Academy of American Poets
The Academy of American Poets is a national, member-supported organization that promotes poets and the art of poetry. The nonprofit organization was incorporated in the state of New York in 1934. It fosters the readership of poetry through outreac ...
Guide to the records of City Lights Books
at The Bancroft Library
The Bancroft Library in the center of the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, is the university's primary special-collections library. It was acquired from its founder, Hubert Howe Bancroft, in 1905, with the proviso that it retai ...
Paul Yamazaki , Chief Buyer at the Bookshop had a conversation with Rishabh Chaddha(Contributing Writer/Correspondent) about Bookselling Business Ecosystem. When and how City Lights Books came into existence , how it became such a historical landmark. What was the mission and vision Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Peter Martin had projected when they founded this book heaven.
{{Authority control
City Lights Books,
Bookstores in the San Francisco Bay Area
Beat Generation
Buildings and structures in San Francisco
Independent bookstores of the United States
Retail buildings in California
Book publishing companies based in San Francisco
Bookstores established in the 20th century
Retail companies established in 1953
1953 establishments in California
American companies established in 1953
San Francisco Designated Landmarks
Chinatown, San Francisco