San Francisco Renaissance
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The term San Francisco Renaissance is used as a global designation for a range of
poetic Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings in a ...
activity centered on
San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
, which brought it to prominence as a hub of the
American poetry American poetry refers to the poetry of the United States. It arose first as efforts by American colonists to add their voices to English poetry in the 17th century, well before the constitutional unification of the Thirteen Colonies (although ...
avant-garde in the 1950s. However, others (e.g.,
Alan Watts Alan Wilson Watts (6 January 1915 – 16 November 1973) was an English writer, speaker and self-styled "philosophical entertainer", known for interpreting and popularising Japanese, Chinese and Indian traditions of Buddhist, Taoist, and Hindu ...
, Ralph J. Gleason) felt this renaissance was a broader phenomenon and should be seen as also encompassing the visual and performing arts, philosophy, cross-cultural interests (particularly those that involved Asian cultures), and new social sensibilities.


Founding

Kenneth Rexroth Kenneth Charles Marion Rexroth (1905–1982) was an American poet, translator, and critical essayist. He is regarded as a central figure in the San Francisco Renaissance, and paved the groundwork for the movement. Although he did not consider h ...
—poet, translator, critic, and author—is the founding father of the renaissance. Rexroth was a prominent second generation
modernist Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, an ...
poet who corresponded with
Ezra Pound Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Fascism, fascist collaborator in Italy during World War II. His works ...
and
William Carlos Williams William Carlos Williams (September 17, 1883 – March 4, 1963) was an American poet, writer, and physician closely associated with modernism and imagism. In addition to his writing, Williams had a long career as a physician practicing both pedia ...
and was published in the '' Objectivist Anthology''. He was amongst the first American poets to explore
Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
ese poetry traditions such as
haiku is a type of short form poetry originally from Japan. Traditional Japanese haiku consist of three phrases that contain a ''kireji'', or "cutting word", 17 '' on'' (phonetic units similar to syllables) in a 5, 7, 5 pattern, and a ''kigo'', or se ...
and was also heavily influenced by
jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
. If Rexroth was the founding father,
Madeline Gleason Madeline Gleason (January 26, 1903 – April 22, 1979) was a United States poet and dramatist. She was the founder of the San Francisco Poetry Guild. In 1947, she became the director of the first poetry festival in the United States, laying the ...
was the founding mother. During the 1940s, both she and Rexroth befriended a group of younger
Berkeley Berkeley most often refers to: *Berkeley, California, a city in the United States **University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California * George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher Berkeley may also refer ...
poets consisting of Robert Duncan, and William Everson;
Jack Spicer Jack Spicer (January 30, 1925 – August 17, 1965) was an American poet often identified with the San Francisco Renaissance. In 2009, ''My Vocabulary Did This to Me: The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer'' won the American Book Award for poetry. H ...
and
Robin Blaser Robin Francis Blaser (May 18, 1925 – May 7, 2009) was an author and poet in both the United States and Canada. Personal background Born in Denver, Colorado, Blaser grew up in Idaho, and came to Berkeley, California, in 1944. There he met Jack ...
became involved in the late 40s. Gleason and Duncan were particularly close and read and criticized each other's work.


Movement

In April 1947, Gleason organized the First Festival of Modern Poetry at Marcelle Labaudt's
Lucien Labaudt Lucien Adolphe Labaudt (May 14, 1880 – December 12, 1943) was a French-born American painter based in San Francisco, California. His best-known work may be ''Powell Street'' (1934), a mural in fresco at Coit Tower that he created for the Public ...
Gallery, 1407 Gough Street, San Francisco. Over the space of two evenings, she brought twelve poets, including Rexroth, Robert Duncan and Spicer, to an audience of young poets and poetry lovers. This was the first public recognition of the range of experimental poetic practice that was current in the city. During the 1950s, Duncan and
Robert Creeley Robert White Creeley (May 21, 1926 – March 30, 2005) was an American poet and author of more than sixty books. He is usually associated with the Black Mountain poets, though his verse aesthetic diverged from that school. He was close with Char ...
both taught at
Black Mountain College Black Mountain College was a private liberal arts college in Black Mountain, North Carolina. It was founded in 1933 by John Andrew Rice, Theodore Dreier, and several others. The college was ideologically organized around John Dewey's educational ...
and acted as links between the San Francisco poets and the
Black Mountain poets The Black Mountain poets, sometimes called projectivist poets, were a group of mid-20th-century American ''avant-garde'' or postmodern poets centered on Black Mountain College in North Carolina. Background Although it lasted only twenty-three ...
. Many of the San Francisco writers began to publish in Cid Corman's ''Origin'' and in the ''Black Mountain Review'', the house journals of the Black Mountain group. Spicer's interest in the ''
cante jondo ''Cante jondo'' (Andalusian ) is a vocal style in flamenco, an unspoiled form of Andalusian folk music. The name means "deep song" in Spanish, with ''hondo'' ("deep") spelled with J () as a form of eye dialect, because traditional Andalusian pro ...
'' also led to links with the
deep image Deep or The Deep may refer to: Places United States * Deep Creek (Appomattox River tributary), Virginia * Deep Creek (Great Salt Lake), Idaho and Utah * Deep Creek (Mahantango Creek tributary), Pennsylvania * Deep Creek (Mojave River tributary), C ...
poets. In 1957, Spicer ran his seminar "Poetry as Magic" at
San Francisco State College San Francisco State University (commonly referred to as San Francisco State, SF State and SFSU) is a public research university in San Francisco. As part of the 23-campus California State University system, the university offers 118 different b ...
with Duncan as a participant.


Impact of ''New American Poetry''

Perhaps the crucial cultural document here was (and is)
Donald Allen Donald Merriam Allen (Iowa, 1912 – San Francisco, August 29, 2004) was an American editor, publisher and translator of American literature. He is best known for his project ''The New American Poetry 1945-1960'' (1960), one of the anthologie ...
's anthology ''
The New American Poetry 1945–1960 ''The New American Poetry 1945–1960'' is a poetry anthology edited by Donald Allen and published in 1960. It aimed to pick out the "third generation" of American modernist poets, and included quite a number of poems fresh from the little magazin ...
''. In this assemblage, Allen grouped some of the poets as "San Francisco Renaissance", and as
Marjorie Perloff Marjorie Perloff (born September 28, 1931) is an Austrian-born poetry scholar and critic in the United States. Early life Perloff was born Gabriele Mintz into a secularized Jewish family in Vienna. The annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany exa ...
observes: The Allen anthology was central to defining both the poetics and broader cultural dynamics of a particular historical moment now referred to as the San Francisco Renaissance. Though a particular "generation" had now been named (in large part because of the Allen anthology), today the debate continues as to the viability or use of the term ''San Francisco Renaissance'' as a "label" to define an entire era or generation. Those who believe the term is accurate will argue on the one hand that indeed a "group" did forge a "renaissance": the impact on our historical consciousness was (and is) measurable. Therefore, for them, the use of the term is still verifiable. On the other hand, there are those who argue that the label ''San Francisco Renaissance'' is just that: a label. As a label, therefore, it exists as a convenient and arbitrary "grouping" of something which remains (and even must remain) "unverifiable". Since the impact of such a broad phenomenon on our consciousness cannot be measured, such an impact has not even been recognized or articulated yet, much less addressed as problematic in itself. Beyond defining itself as itself (For example, defining some ''measurable'' impact on consciousness or on ourselves as human beings), critics of the term ''San Francisco Renaissance'' argue that beyond that particular use as a label (even if it helps to signal the arrival of a "new" phenomenon not accounted for on our consciousness), a word itself, as such, cannot act for us as an organizing principle. In other words, we are misguided if we do not recognize how this label fails us (beyond a certain usefulness as a label or "grouping") when it comes to truly measuring (much less accounting for) the impact of multiple, broad and dynamic social, political, and artistic changes in our consciousness. Among those critical of terminology and among those who dare to question ''how'' and why it ''can'' impact consciousness, asking what that proposes for a definition of the ''human'', perhaps
Ron Silliman Ron Silliman (born August 5, 1946) is an American poet. He has written and edited over 30 books, and has had his poetry and criticism translated into 12 languages. He is often associated with language poetry. Between 1979 and 2004, Silliman wr ...
has been most articulate:


Beat generation

Around the same time that Duncan, Spicer and Blaser were at Berkeley,
Gary Snyder Gary Snyder (born May 8, 1930) is an American poet, essayist, lecturer, and environmental activist. His early poetry has been associated with the Beat Generation and the San Francisco Renaissance and he has been described as the "poet laureate of ...
,
Philip Whalen Philip Glenn Whalen (October 20, 1923 – June 26, 2002) was an American poet, Zen Buddhist, and a key figure in the San Francisco Renaissance and close to the Beat generation. Biography Born in Portland, Oregon, Whalen grew up in The Dalles f ...
and
Lew Welch Lewis Barrett Welch Jr. (August 16, 1926 – May 1971?) was an American poet associated with the Beat generation literary movement. Welch published and performed widely during the 1960s. He taught a poetry workshop as part of the University of C ...
were attending
Reed College Reed College is a private liberal arts college in Portland, Oregon. Founded in 1908, Reed is a residential college with a campus in the Eastmoreland neighborhood, with Tudor-Gothic style architecture, and a forested canyon nature preserve at ...
in Portland, Oregon. All three stemmed initially from Rexroth and his curriculum and in the early 50s gravitated to the San Francisco area, where Spicer exercised an influence over Whalen and Welch. Although later associated by outsiders and publicists with the Beats, their primary sources are West Coast.
Kirby Doyle Kirby Doyle (November 27, 1932 – April 5, 2003), born Stanton Doyle, was an American poet. He was featured in the ''New American Poetry'' anthology, with the so-called "third generation" of American modernist poets. He was one of the San ...
, a native San Franciscan, and
Bob Kaufman Robert Garnell Kaufman (April 18, 1925 – January 12, 1986) was an American Beat poet and surrealist as well as a jazz performance artist and satirist. In France, where his poetry had a large following, he was known as the "black American ...
, originally from New Orleans, were with more reason associated in later accounts with the Beats.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti Lawrence Monsanto Ferlinghetti (March 24, 1919 – February 22, 2021) was an American poet, painter, social activist, and co-founder of City Lights Booksellers & Publishers. The author of poetry, translations, fiction, theatre, art criticism, an ...
had been studying for a doctorate at the Sorbonne and, while in Paris, met Kenneth Rexroth, who later persuaded him to go to San Francisco to experience the growing literary scene there. Between 1951 and 1953, Ferlinghetti taught French, wrote literary criticism, and painted. In 1953, he and a business partner established the
City Lights Bookstore City Lights is an independent bookstore-publisher combination in San Francisco, California, that specializes in world literature, the arts, and progressive politics. It also houses the nonprofit City Lights Foundation, which publishes selected tit ...
and started publishing as City Lights Press two years later. Snyder and Whalen, along with
Michael McClure Michael McClure (October 20, 1932 – May 4, 2020) was an American poet, playwright, songwriter, and novelist. After moving to San Francisco as a young man, he found fame as one of the five poets (including Allen Ginsberg) who read at the famous ...
, were among the poets who performed at the famous Six Gallery poetry reading that Kenneth Rexroth organized in San Francisco on October 13 (or October 7, sources vary), 1955. This reading signaled the full emergence of the San Francisco Renaissance into the public consciousness and helped establish the city's reputation as a center for countercultural activity that came to full flower during the
hippie A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to different countries around ...
years of the 1960s. A short fictional account of this event forms the second chapter of
Jack Kerouac Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac (; March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969), known as Jack Kerouac, was an American novelist and poet who, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, was a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Of French-Canadian a ...
's 1958 novel ''
The Dharma Bums ''The Dharma Bums'' is a 1958 novel by Beat Generation author Jack Kerouac. The basis for the novel's semi-fictional accounts are events occurring years after the events of ''On the Road''. The main characters are the narrator Ray Smith, based on ...
''. In the account, he describes
Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...
's famous reading of his poem "
Howl Howl most often refers to: *Howling, an animal vocalization in many canine species *Howl (poem), a 1956 poem by Allen Ginsberg Howl may also refer to: Film * ''The Howl'', a 1970 Italian film * ''Howl'' (2010 film), a 2010 American arthouse b ...
". Kerouac and Ginsberg had attended the reading with some of their poet friends.


Legacy

The Bay Area-based philosopher and writer
Alan Watts Alan Wilson Watts (6 January 1915 – 16 November 1973) was an English writer, speaker and self-styled "philosophical entertainer", known for interpreting and popularising Japanese, Chinese and Indian traditions of Buddhist, Taoist, and Hindu ...
, in his autobiography, mentioned that by around 1960 or so "... something else was on the way, in religion, in music, in ethics and sexuality, in our attitudes to nature, and in our whole style of life", and described characteristics of a "Clear School" of poetry on whose roll he included "Alice Meynell, Walter de la Mare, Emily Dickinson, Kenneth Rexroth, Karl Shapiro, Jean Burden, and Eric Barker (to name but a few)." Watts asserted that these poets employ traditional rhythms and "say what they have to say with an easy, natural clarity which avoids both clichés and obscure allusions or bizarre, far-fetched images." Some of the songwriters of the upcoming rock-music generation of the mid-1960s and later read and appreciated writers like Kerouac, Snyder, McClure, Ferlinghetti, and Ginsberg (e.g.,
Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...
, for one, has talked about this). Hence, given that much of the late-'60s wave of groundbreaking
rock music Rock music is a broad genre of popular music that originated as " rock and roll" in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of different styles in the mid-1960s and later, particularly in the United States an ...
developed within rock's famous San Francisco Sound, it seems very likely that the writers of the San Francisco Renaissance had an influence on the lyrics, both artistically and in terms of attitudes to living. The "underground press" that developed in America and elsewhere in the 1960s had one of its most interesting and colorful examples in the ''
San Francisco Oracle ''The Oracle of the City of San Francisco'', also known as the ''San Francisco Oracle,'' was an underground newspaper published in 12 issues from September 20, 1966, to February 1968 in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of that city. Allen Cohen (p ...
'' which reflected the hippie culture and other aspects of the
counterculture A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. Hou ...
. The ''Oracle'' gave much space to writings by Gary Snyder, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Michael McClure, and other Beat writers, along with emerging younger writers. Both Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Michael McClure were featured on-stage in the rock-star jammed ''
The Last Waltz ''The Last Waltz'' was a concert by the Canadian-American rock group The Band, held on American Thanksgiving Day, November 25, 1976, at Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco. ''The Last Waltz'' was advertised as The Band's "farewell concert a ...
'', a 1978 documentary and concert film made by
Martin Scorsese Martin Charles Scorsese ( , ; born November 17, 1942) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter and actor. Scorsese emerged as one of the major figures of the New Hollywood era. He is the recipient of List of awards and nominatio ...
about The Band (who had an immense following in the late 1960s to mid 1970s), a large number of their musical friends, and the 1976 concert of the same name.


References


Sources


Print

*Allen, Donald M., ed. ''The New American Poetry: 1945-1960'' (1960, reissued 1999); (University of California Press). *Ellingham, Lewis & Killian, Kevin. ''Poet Be Like God: Jack Spicer and the San Francisco Renaissance'', (Hanover, NH: Wesleyan University Press, 1998). *French, Warren G. "The San Francisco Poetry Renaissance 1955-1960" (Twayne, 1991). * Davidson, Michael. ''The San Francisco Renaissance: Poetics and Community at Mid-Century'', (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989). *Kerouac, Jack ''
The Dharma Bums ''The Dharma Bums'' is a 1958 novel by Beat Generation author Jack Kerouac. The basis for the novel's semi-fictional accounts are events occurring years after the events of ''On the Road''. The main characters are the narrator Ray Smith, based on ...
'', (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1958). *Snyder, Gary ''The Real Work: Interviews & Talks 1964-1979''. (New York: New Directions, 1980). *Spicer, Jack ''
The Collected Books of Jack Spicer ''The Collected Books of Jack Spicer'' first appeared in 1975, ten years after the death of Jack Spicer. It was "edited & with a commentary by Robin Blaser" and published in Santa Rosa, California by Black Sparrow Press. A primary document of the ...
''. Edited and with commentary by Robin Blaser. (Santa Rosa, Calif.:
Black Sparrow Press Black Sparrow Press is a New England based independent book publisher, known for literary fiction and poetry. History Black Sparrow was founded in Los Angeles, California, in 1966 by John Martin in order to publish the works of Charles Bukowski ...
, 1975). *Watts, Alan W. "Breakthrough" (chapter) in ''In My Own Way'', (New York: Pantheon, 1972). *Wagstaff, Christopher (ed). ''Madeline Gleason: Collected Poems 1919–1979'' (has a very useful historical introduction)


Recordings and sound-files

*Howls, Raps & Roars: Recordings from the San Francisco poetry renaissance (compilation) (Universal Music Group, 1963; Fantasy Records 1993).


External links


The Beats and the San Francisco Renaissance
Captured April 25, 2005.

{{Counterculture of the 1960s American literary movements Culture of San Francisco Beat Generation Modernist poetry in English 20th-century American literature California literature