Here are all of Ferlinghetti’s poems set in the city he has lived in for over half a century. He brings alive, with wit and lyricism, scenes of city life: a Giants baseball game, the Green Street Marching Mortuary Band, bohemian North Beach, Golden Gate Park, yachts on the Bay, and more. Also included are historic photographs, scattered prose pieces, and the text of his mischievous inaugural address with his vision of the city’s history as a poetic center and suggestions for keeping it that way.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti is a bookman, painter and author of poetry, fiction, essays and plays. His most recent books are How to Paint Sunlight (poetry) and Love in the Days of Rage (fiction).

San Francisco Poems (San Francisco Poet Laureate Series)

Literature & Fiction

FERLINGHETTI, LAWRENCE

Poetry

City Lights Foundation Books

This impressive collection brings together Mirikitani’s strongest poems on a diversity of subjects: the incarceration of Japanese-Americans during World War II, the fragility and challenges of family relationships, and the quest by people at the margins of society to claim justice, bread and dignity. Also included is her long inaugural essay in which she discusses how poetry can connect people and transform lives.
Janice Mirikitani is the author of three books of poetry. She has, over the past 35 years, created and directed programs for young people and people in need at Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district.

Love Works (San Francisco Poet Laureate Series)

Mirikitani, Janice

This collection of poetry begins with the poet’s inaugural address as Laureate of San Francisco, a sparkling essay that shows how poetry can please and empower. Strong, introspective and caring, major’s poems capture the challenge and joy of being an artist, as they survey the political and social landscapes of one of America’s favorite cities.
"A visionary of hope, with a heart big enough to embrace every neighborhood, street and alley in this magical and -poetical city. Here is a poet who shoots straight as Cupid’s arrow. Zing! Right to the heart."—Alejandro Murguía
devorah major is a poet, novelist, and essayist who has published prize-winning works of fiction and poetry. Among her books are Open Weave,Brown Glass Windows, and Street Smarts. She lives in San Francisco and works as an editor and arts administrator.

Where River Meets Ocean (San Francisco Poet Laureate Series)

Major, Devorah

In conjunction with the San Francisco Public Library, poet laureate devorah major made a public appeal for poems that explored the realities of people’s lives in a city as tough and tragic as it is beautiful and exhilarating. This anthology collects the best of this poetry by celebrated writers, schoolchildren with fresh eyes, homeless people and students, perceptive elders and working people from every ethnicity and class. A cross section of the city’s voices offers a passionately experienced response to the city, the nation and the world.
devorah major is an African American poet, novelist, essayist and teacher. Among her books are Brown Glass Windows, Open Weave, street smarts and Where River Meets Ocean.

The Other Side of the Postcard

Eleven-year-old Lisa becomes her mother’s primary support when they face the prospect of homelessness. As Dee, a single mother, struggles with the demons of her own childhood of neglect and abuse, Lisa has to quickly assume the role of an adult in an attempt to keep some stability in their lives. “Dee and Tiny” ultimately become underground celebrities in San Francisco, squatting in storefronts and performing the “art of homelessness.” Their story, filled with black humor and incisive analysis, illuminates the roots of poverty, the criminalization of poor families, and their struggle for survival.

Criminal of Poverty: Growing Up Homeless in America

Politics & Social Sciences

Gray-Garcia, Tiny aka Lisa

Social Sciences

The fourth volume of the San Francisco Poet Laureate Series, All That’s Left is a powerful collection of poems for social justice by street-poet-turned- laureate Jack Hirschman. The volume opens with Hirschman’s autobiographical inaugural address, which vividly traces his career as poet, translator, and agitator.
Included are several of Hirschman’s earlier poems, marking successive stages of his poetic development. The poems following the address were composed during his tenure as poet laureate, covering contemporary outrages like post-Katrina New Orleans and the Virginia Tech tragedy, paying homage to fallen poetic comrades like Jack Kerouac and Bob Kaufman, and exploring more personal dimensions of love.

All That's Left (San Francisco Poet Laureate Series)

Hirschman, Jack

A historian’s nostalgic trip to a series of local daytrip sites takes an unexpected turn as she explores the mysterious draw of these places. Childhood memories and urban myths lead to research into hidden stories, and what’s revealed tells much about the politics of history-making.
Writing in a personal, funny, and engaging style, Dana Frank brings the reader along on her process of discovery. Full of surprises and plot twists along the way, her adventures are quirky, fun, and informative. Each essay is accompanied by a map and illustrated with photos, news clippings, and memorabilia.
 Dana Frank is a professor of history at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Local Girl Makes History: Exploring Northern California's Kitsch Monuments

History

Frank, Dana

Americas

The poems and short stories collected in this volume are the outcome of fifteen years of an amazingly successful experiment: asking accomplished writers to teach workshops in juvenile detention facilities, homeless shelters, inner-city schools, and schools for newly arrived immigrants. Follow these teacher-artists in the National Writers Corps on their journey into the halls and streets of America's diverse neighborhoods as they enrich the lives and creativity of their students—and find their own voices changed in the process. As one writer-teacher puts it: "Writing in community gathers us around the proverbial campfire and reminds us why we do this: because hearing stories helps us make sense of the world, and because telling them helps us make sense of ourselves."

Days I Moved Through Ordinary Sounds: The Extraordinary Work of WritersCorps Teachers

Over two million individuals are behind bars in US prisons, living in isolation from their families and their communities. Prison/Culture investigates the culture of incarceration as an integral part of the American experience through a compilation of stunning and often heartrending artwork by inmates as well as by artists on the outside, such as Sandow Birk and Keith Antar Mason, who address incarceration, criminal profiling, wrongful conviction, prison labor, and the death penalty. The book also includes essays on prisons and prison art by Angela Y. Davis and Mike Davis, and poetry by Amiri Baraka, Ericka Huggins, Luis Rodriguez, Sesshu Foster, and more.

Prison/Culture

Arts & Photography

A collection of essays spans the tumultuous decade from 1968, the year of the San Francisco State University strike, to 1978 and the twin traumas of the Jonestown massacre and the assassinations of mayor George Moscone and supervisor Harvey Milk. This volume provides a broad look at the diverse ways these ten years shook the city of San Francisco and shaped the world we live in today. From community gardening to environmental justice, gay rights and other identity-based social movements, anti-gentrification efforts, neighborhood arts programs and more, many of the initiatives whose origins are described here have taken root and spread far beyond San Francisco.

Ten Years That Shook the City: San Francisco 1968-1978

See the best price to sell, buy or rent books by the City Lights Foundation Books publisher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by City Lights Foundation Books