February 25, 2021 As news and tributes to the poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti pour in from across the social media and the internet, NDQ thought it would be appropriate to recognize Ferlinghetti’s influence on our little corner of the world. A good start would be the contribution by James McKenzie to our 2017 issue celebrating the Thomas McGrath centennial. McKenzie was director of the University of North Dakota’s Writers Conference starting in 1997, and in this article, he recalls the arrival of the Beats on UND’s campus almost 25 years earlier, in 1974, and their interaction with one another and with Tom McGrath. The stories are charming and shows the real camaraderie that existed between Ferlinghetti, McGrath, and the other participants. You can read it here and if you like it, you can download the entire issue (