Glossary Term of the Day:

Not a single movement persey, the San Francisco Renaissance was a constellation of writers and artists active in the San Francisco Bay Area at the end of World War II. The poet Kenneth Rexroth is generally considered to be the founding father of the San Francisco 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.

Other poets associated with the San Francisco Renaissance include Robert Duncan, Robin Blaser, Jack Spicer, and Michael McClure. Though the poets wrote in different styles and often espoused different aesthetic and political views, all favored the Modernist tradition of innovation, and many were influenced by Charles Olson and the Black Mountain School. Donald Allen’s influential anthology The New American Poets included a section devoted to the “San Francisco Renaissance,” and many claim that by labeling the group, Allen in some way invented it. However, the poets writing in San Francisco at that time were active and influential across many genres, and often read and collaborated with one another.

And 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.

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:

The Following Text Is Quoted:

...San Francisco Renaissance is a grouping that I’ve argued before was largely a fiction created by Allen’s need to organize his materials.