San Francisco Renaissance

San Francisco Renaissance

The term "San Francisco Renaissance" is used as a global designation for a range of poetic activity centered around that city and which brought it to prominence as a hub of the American poetic "avant-garde". However, others (e.g., Ralph J. Gleason, Alan Watts) felt this renaissance was a broader phenomenon and should be seen as also encompassing visual and performing arts, philosophy, cross-cultural interests (particularly those that involved Asian cultures), and new social sensibilities.

First beginnings

The poet Kenneth Rexroth is generally considered to be the founding father of the renaissance. Rexroth was a prominent second generation modernist poet who corresponded with Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams and was published in the "Objectivist Anthology". He was amongst the first American poets to explore Japanese poetry traditions such as haiku and was also heavily influenced by jazz.

If Rexroth was the founding father, Madeline Gleason was the founding mother. During the 1940s, both she and Rexroth befriended a group of younger Berkeley poets consisting of Robert Duncan, Jack Spicer and Robin Blaser. Gleason and Duncan were particularly close and read and criticized each other's work.

A movement emerges

In April 1947, Gleason organized the First Festival of Modern Poetry at the Lucien Labaudt Gallery, Gough Street. 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 both spent periods of time teaching at Black Mountain College and acted as links between the San Francisco poets and the Black Mountain poets. 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 "canto jondo" also led to links with the deep image poets. In 1957, Spicer ran his seminar Poetry as Magic at San Francisco State College with Duncan as a participant.

Impact of the "New American Poetry"

Perhaps the crucial cultural document here was (and is) Donald Allen's anthology The New American Poetry 1945-1960. In this assemblage, Allen had grouped some of the poets "San Francisco Renaissance", and as Marjorie Perloff 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 (i.e. such as 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 has been most articulate: Quotation|...San Francisco Renaissance is a grouping that I’ve argued before was largely a fiction created by Allen’s need to organize his materials [ [http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/2006/08/of-all-poets-included-in-watershed.html Silliman's Blog ] ]

The Beats

Around the same time that Duncan, Spicer and Blaser were at Berkeley, Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen and Lew Welch were attending Reed College in Portland together. These three, along with Kirby Doyle, a native San Franciscan, were to form the nucleus of the West Coast wing of the Beat generation.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti had been studying for a doctorate at the Sorbonne and, while in Paris, he 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 and started publishing from City Lights Press two years later.

Snyder and Whalen, along with Michael McClure, 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 years of the 1960s. A short fictional account of this event forms the second chapter of Jack Kerouac's 1958 novel "The Dharma Bums". In the account he describes Allen Ginsberg's famous reading of his poem "Howl". Kerouac and Ginsberg had attended the reading with some of their poet friends.

Legacy

The Bay Area-based philosopher and writer Alan Watts, 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" (from Watts, "In My Own Way").

It was the case that 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, for one, has talked about this). Hence, given that much of the late-'60s wave of groundbreaking rock music 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" which reflected the hippie culture and other aspects of the counterculture. 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", a documentary and concert film made by Martin Scorsese about The Band (who had an immense following in the late '60s to mid '70s) and a large number of their musical friends.

Ferlinghetti's friend and frequent City Lights guest, 85 year old Herman Berlandt is the dreamer/creator/director of the future International Poetry Museum in San Francisco. Bolinas poet Berlandt is also producer of 17 poetry-film festivals and one poetry-rock festival and 15 poetry collections. The future of the San Francisco Renaissance could live on in his proposed International Poetry Museum.

Notes

3. http://poetry.about.com/library/weekly/aa050802a.htm?terms=herman+berlandt4. http://www.nationalpoetry.org/poetryusa/know.html5. Herman Berlandt Proposed International Poetry Museum or IPMhttp://internationalpoetrymuseum.org

References

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).

*Davidson, Michael. "The San Francisco Renaissance: Poetics and Community at Mid-Century", (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).

*Kerouac, Jack "The Dharma Bums", (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1958). ISBN 0-14-004252-0

*Snyder, Gary "The Real Work: Interviews & Talks 1964-1979". (New York: New Directions, 1980). ISBN 0-8112-0761-7

*Spicer, Jack "The Collected Books of Jack Spicer". Edited and with commentary by Robin Blaser. (Santa Rosa, Calif.: Black Sparrow Press, 1975).

*Watts, Alan W. "Breakthrough" (chapter) in "In My Own Way", (New York: Pantheon, 1972). ISBN 0-394-46911-9

*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).

Online

* [http://www.lib.virginia.edu/speccol/exhibits/sixties/beatssf.html The Beats and the San Francisco Renaissance] Captured April 25, 2005.
* [http://www.citylights.com/ City Lights Web site] Captured April 25, 2005.
*Proposed International Poetry Museum by Herman Berlandt & supported by his friend Ferlinghetti http://internationalpoetrymuseum.org

:Schools of poetry

Proposed International Poetry Museum of IPMhttp://internationalpoetrymuseum.org


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужен реферат?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • San Francisco Renaissance — Die San Francisco Renaissance bezeichnet eine literarische Bewegung die in San Francisco stattfand und sich auch auf Bereiche der Kunst, Philosophie und soziale, besonders inter kulturelle die sich auf Asien beziehen, Belange ausgewirkte. Anfänge …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • San Francisco Renaissance — Renaissance de San Francisco Le terme de Renaissance de San Francisco est employé pour désigner la période d effervescence en matière de poésie que connut la ville de San Francisco, aux États Unis, dans les années 1950. Certains artistes tels que …   Wikipédia en Français

  • San Francisco County — San Francisco Spitzname: Frisco, San Fran San Francisco mit Golden Gate Bridge im Vordergrund …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • San francisco — Spitzname: Frisco, San Fran San Francisco mit Golden Gate Bridge im Vordergrund …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • San Francisco — Spitzname: The City by the Bay, Frisco, San Fran San Francisco mit Golden Gate Bridge im Vordergrund …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • San Francisco, California — Infobox Settlement official name = City and County of San Francisco nickname = The City by the Bay, The CityFact|date=October 2008, Frisco, [cite news last = Sullivan | first = James title = Frisco, that once verboten term for the city by the bay …   Wikipedia

  • San Francisco — This article is about the city and county in California. For other uses, see San Francisco (disambiguation). San Francisco   City and county   City and County of San Francisco …   Wikipedia

  • San Francisco Sound — The San Francisco Sound refers to rock music performed live and recorded by San Francisco based rock groups of the mid 1960s to early 1970s. It was associated with the counterculture community in San Francisco during these years.Prominent in this …   Wikipedia

  • San Francisco Sound — Le San Francisco Sound est une composante de la musique rock qui a pris naissance à San Francisco au milieu des années 60 jusqu au début des années 70. Elle a été associée à la contre culture de San Francisco et plus spécialement de la San… …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Renaissance San Francisco Stanford Court Hotel — (Сан Франциско,США) Категория отеля: 4 звездочный отель Адрес …   Каталог отелей

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”