Postcard from Ferlinghetti: The Flip Side

Photograph by Gordon Ball. Copyright Gordon Ball.

Since my previous post about receiving a postcard from City Lights Bookstore founder, poet and painter Lawrence Ferlinghetti in response to sending him a copy of Beatitude, several people have asked, “What was on the other side of the postcard?” The flip side featured this iconic and brilliant photograph of several cadets reading Allen Ginsberg’s Howl and Other Poemsat the Virginia Military Institute (VMI), taken by Gordon Ball in 1991.

Ball, an...