Lawrence Ferlinghetti previewed selections from Poetry as Insurgent Art and was introduced by Marie Ponsot.
Upper East Side Informer’s Girl About Town attended and wrote:
In his baseball cap and wire rim glasses—red frames, mind you—Lawrence Ferlinghetti read his poems in a wispy, near whisper of a voice to a sold-out crowd at the Y last night. His adoring fans hooted and hollered as he took to the podium. If you saw him there with his gentle, glowing eyes and ways you’d have been hooting, too.
Ah, a living poet. There was just something in the way the first poet laureate out of San Francisco moved about the stage. He carried his poems in a large manila envelope. And when it grew time to read, he pulled out the sheets of paper and held them near to his eyes. He ruffled them for a while. Waited on a pregnant pause or two. And, read. His poems were funny. And, political.