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Italian Heritage Month is a time for us to reflect on the profound impact that Italian immigrants have had on the cultural, economic, and social fabric of San Francisco and the broader Bay Area. This celebration is not only a recognition of our shared history but also a testament to our enduring values of hard work, creativity, and community. San F...

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Saturday, May 29. 12:30 PM – 7 PM PST. Streaming Live on Howlarts.org. Earlier this year we lost the incomparable poet, painter, and social activist, Lawrence Ferlinghetti (March 24, 1919 – February 22, 2021). Howl! Arts and Bob Holman are honored to bring together a spectacular group of poets, writers, filmmakers, activists, musicians, and artists...

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When Lawrence Ferlinghetti died in February, for some it felt like the poet and City Lights Booksellers & Publishers co-founder took a piece of San Francisco with him. Like the store, Ferlinghetti was a literary landmark, his presence in North Beach and around the city as much a given as the fog or cable car bells. While his death at age 101 was pe...

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Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who died on Monday at the age of 101, was one of the key figures in 20th century American culture. He was as responsible as any single other person for the rise of the Beats, the end of obscenity laws, and, not least, the transformation of San Francisco from a backwater province to a vibrant artistic center. He did all this t...

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By early afternoon, a small memorial of flowers and a can of Pabst had begun to accumulate outside the door of City Lights Books, to commemorate the death of its co-founder Lawrence Ferlinghetti. And by the evening, a vigil for Ferlinghetti, one of the last living links to the Beat generation, was being held in the adjacent Jack Kerouac Alley, a ti...

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The month of March has brought us Spring, and the 100th birthday of a legend, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, celebrated poet and San Francisco’s first Poet Laureate. He is also a painter, social activist, and the co-founder of City Lights Booksellers & Publishers located in San Francisco’s North Beach district.  On the occasion of this historic month, L’It...

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Two things Lawrence Ferlinghetti has done in abundance — besides writing poetry — is paint and pose for pictures. And there are enough of each to fill a gallery. To that end, in honor of the North Beach bard’s 100th birthday on March 24, Rena Bransten Gallery is showing the paintings of Ferlinghetti, and Canessa Gallery is showing pictures of Ferli...

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Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s hand-painted sign, taped to the window of his office at City Lights, overlooking Columbus Avenue, reads: “OPEN DOOR.” That all-inclusive ethos, which has guided the San Francisco bookstore since Ferlinghetti co-founded it in 1953, will be fully evident when the shop hosts an open house on March 24 to celebrate Ferlinghetti’s...

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L’ultimo dei beat, l’apostolo del dissenso cresciuto in un’America in cui essere italiano voleva dire puzzare di aglio e peperoni, il poeta che bombardava Genova di poesie sganciate da un balcone e si presentava alle vernici con la spilla «Fuck art — let’s dance» appuntata sulla giacca, non ha perso il vizio. A cent’anni (quasi: li compie il 24 mar...

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There's a family that runs its history through the decades serving the town of San Francisco: before Joseph, then his daughter Angela, now her son Joseph. There's a project called Porziuncola Nuova that connected San Francisco to Saint Francis' town, Assisi. There's a square in front of a church in the North Beach, San Francisco's Little Italy, tha...

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