Neeli Cherkovski, the prolific poet (most lately of ABCs and Hang On to the Yangtze River) and biographer of Charles Bukowski, first wrote a biography of Lawrence Ferlinghetti in 1979. This recently released expanded edition of Ferlinghetti, A Life includes a new foreword, epilogue and afterword, each of them alight with moving, intimate stories.

In the foreword, “From the City of Angels to the City of Poets,” Cherkovski tells of how he came to write the biography. Fired from the San Francisco mayoral campaign of George Moscone and living off unemployment checks, he got to know Ferlinghetti and other local poets starting in 1974. He learned Ferlinghetti had a shy, sensitive side but was also “committed to clarity, not just in prose but in poetry as well.”