News at Eleven: [Lawrence] Ferlinghetti taped a message of

gratitude to Litquake. In it, he read "At Sea," a poem composed this year--one that San Francisco poet laureate Jack Hirschman called his finest ever. In keeping with the hope-and-the-city mood of Ferlinghetti's earlier works--A Coney Island of the Mind, A Far Rockaway of the Heart, Americus--"At Sea" radiates a utopian realism, a provincial comspolitanism that's become synonymous with San Francisco and social progress. It's the voice of an innocent who's seen much to be cynical about, but releases the memory with ease:

from Mother Jones: At 91, Ferlinghetti's Still a Howl

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