The San Francisco Renaissance: Poetics and Community at Mid-Century

Description

The San Francisco Renaissance is the first overview of this major American literary movement. Michael Davidson recounts its emergence during the postwar period in the San Francisco Bay area as defined by poets such as Kenneth Rexroth, Robert Duncan and William Everson, and then as it blossomed into the literary excitements associated with the Beat movement and with writers like Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. Individual chapters are devoted to major writers of the period and to their involvement with social and political change during the Cold War era. Davidson's penultimate chapter deals with the largely neglected context of women writers during this period, and the final chapter deals with poetry since 1965. Cover Title Copyright Dedication Contents Preface Acknowledgments Introduction: Enabling Fictions INAUGURAL MOMENTS THE WESTERN GATE: POETRY AND PLACE POETICS AS PERFORMANCE COMMUNITY AND PERFORMANC ELEGY OR UTOPIA 1 The Elegiac Mode: Rhetoric and Poetics in the 1940s SOME VERSIONS OF ELEGY CIRCLES AND CENTERS KENNETH REXROTH, "THE PHOENIX AND THETORTOISE" WILLIAM EVERSON, "CHRONICLE OF DIVISION" ROBERT DUNCAN, "THE VENICE POEM" "THE RHETORIC OF AN EARLY MODE1' 2 "The Darkness Surrounds Us": Participation and Reflection among the Beat Writers BEFORE BEATITUDE THE "TOO-HUGE WORLD VAULTING US": JACK KEROUAC "INCARNATE GAPS": ALLEN GINSBERG "ABSTRACT ALCHEMIST OF FLESH": MICHAEL MCCLURE OUR GANG AND THE CANON 3 "Spotting That Design": Incarnation and Interpretation in Gary Snyder and Philip Whalen FORMS OF SPIRITUAL PRACTICE GARYSNYDER AND THE REAL WORK "A WALKING GROVE OF TREES": PHILIP WHALEN 4 "Cave of Resemblances, Cave of Rimes": Tradition and Repetition in Robert Duncan TRADITION AND THE HERETICAL TALENT READING, WRITING, AND REPETITION "THE TROUBLE OF AN EROS" "THE UNDERSIDE TURNING" 5 "The City Redefined": Community and Dialogue in Jack Spicer "BOTH OF US WERE OBJECT" "THE CITY THAT WE CREATE IN OUR BARTALK" FROM LOGOS TO LOWGHOST THE CITY AS DIAMOND 6 Appropriations: Women and the San Francisco Renaissance GENDER IN BOHEMIA THE BOYS' CLUB HELEN ADAM: "POSSESSED BY LOVE" JOANNE KYGER: "AN EXTENSION OF MY ARM" JUDY GRAHN: THE UNCOMMON COMMON WOMAN CONCLUSION: WHOSE RENAISSANCE? 7 Approaching the Fin de Siècle THE SECOND GEN "THE WORLD IN THE OTHER WORLD": ROBERT HASS WOMAN AND/AS SIGN: LYN HEJINIAN CONCLUSION: A CITY ON A HILL Notes Index