The
City Lights Bookstore in
San Francisco is an independent
bookstore[?] specializing in
poetry. In addition to selling books, it operates as a
small press[?] publisher of poetry. The bookstore was co-founded in 1953 by the poet
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who became its sole owner two years after its establishment, and who began the publishing program in 1955 in order to publish
Beat poets. City Lights proved its worth by publishing
Howl when no other publisher would touch it. In
The Fall of America[?] Allen Ginsburg describes City Lights as "home."
City Lights Bookstore home page (
http://www.citylights.com/)