Ferlinghetti Day UK 2026
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Ferlinghetti Day UK 2026
Always double check opening hours with the venue before making a special visit.
Taking place in Hedben Bridge’s In a Land gallery, Ferlinghetti Day at offers a fittingly communal way to mark the birthday of one of literature’s great public voices.
As you may have guessed, the evening celebrates Lawrence Ferlinghetti – poet, painter, publisher and founder of San Francisco’s legendary City Lights Bookshop, whose work and influence helped shape postwar American poetry.
The event takes its cue from San Francisco’s annual Ferlinghetti birthday walkabout, as well as a Bradford gathering held last year at the 1 in 12 Club. Here, the focus is on Ferlinghetti not as a distant literary monument, but as a writer whose belief in poetry as a living, insurgent art still carries charge. Proceedings begin with a short film, followed by a full reading of Poetry as Insurgent Art, his bracing manifesto for poetry.
After a short break, the evening opens out into shared contributions, with space for guests to read a favourite Ferlinghetti poem or offer work inspired by him, alongside clips of the poet reading his own writing. Add wine, nibbles and good company, and this becomes less a formal tribute than a warm, open gathering in the spirit Ferlinghetti himself would likely have appreciated.
