Pocket Poets Series

The Pocket Poets Series is a line of small-format paperback poetry books published by City Lights Books of San Francisco, founded by Lawrence Ferlinghetti in 1955. It is a publisher's imprint rather than a continuing narrative series: each numbered volume is an independent poetry collection by a different poet, spanning Beat Generation and San Francisco Renaissance writers as well as poets translated from other languages. Its most famous entry is Allen Ginsberg's "Howl and Other Poems" (No. 4), whose publication led to an obscenity trial. The imprint has continued to add numbered volumes for decades and remains active.