City Lights and the Emergence of Beat Poetry: How Howl and Other Poems redefined Poetic and Cultural Boundaries in the mid-1950s

Abstract

This paper examines how City Lights, a San Francisco-based small press, became not only the lighthouse in the Bay for Beat and Beat-related artists and poets but also a countercultural organ of dissent channelling new poetic visions and aesthetics starting from the mid-1950s. By providing an entry into the publishing conditions of experimental works at the time, it sets the frame for understanding, on the one hand, the specificities of City Lights publishers and Ferlinghetti’s creation of the Poet Pockets Series collection, and on the other hand, the issue of publishing Beat works in the mid-1950s. Ginsberg’s seminal opus Howl and Other Poems, number 4 of the Series, will operate as a means to initiate a dialogue on the mutual influence of City Lights Publishers and the Beats, and to discuss the Beats’ legacy on City Lights editorial policy.

Keywords

• City Lights Publisher
• Lawrence Ferlinghetti
• Allen Ginsberg
• Beat Generation
• small press