San Francisco Renaissance

The term San Francisco Renaissance is used as a global designation for a range of poetic activity centered on San Francisco, which brought it to prominence as a hub of the American poetry avant-garde. However, others (e.g., Alan Watts, 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.

Kenneth Rexroth—poet, translator, critic, and author—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.

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.

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