Psychedelic 60s: The Beats: San Francisco

WHEN ALLEN GINSBERG arrived in San Francisco in August 1954, the famed San Francisco poetry scene was thriving with such luminaries as Kenneth Rexroth, Robert Duncan, and William Everson. Ginsberg's recitation of Howl in November 1955, at the Six Gallery, galvanized that community and brought the Beat aesthetic to the West Coast: this signaled an era that would become known as the San Francisco Renaissance. A number of the younger poets followed Ginsberg's example and began producing poetry that owed more to the Beat experience of New York than to the older, established poets of San Francisco.

First Poem
Peter Orlovsky ALLEN GINSBURG MET twenty-year-old Peter Orlovsky within a year of his arrival in San Francisco, and the two quickly became inseparable. Orlovsky traveled with Ginsberg to Tangiers to help Burroughs work on Naked Lunch and accompanied him on subsequent journeys to India, Nepal, and Japan. Peter Orlovsky, like his New York counterparts, Cassady, Huncke, and Solomon, contributed more to the Beat movement through his presence than from his actual literary output.

A Coney Island of The Mind
Lawrence Ferlinghetti LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI ATTENDED Columbia University at the same time as Allen Ginsberg and Jack Keroauc, but apparently never made their acquaintance. He shared with them a love of avant-garde literature, travel to exotic places, and libertarian pacifist politics; but he never identified himself as a Beat. In 1953 Ferlinghetti, with Peter D. Martin, founded a bookstore in San Francisco that sold only paperbacks called City Lights (after Charlie Chaplin's movie of the same name). After buying out Martin in 1955, Ferlinghetti began publishing a series of avant-garde poetry and fiction under the imprint of City Lights Books. Howl by Allen Ginsberg was number four in the series and became City Lights Books' first major success. A highly successful poet himself, Ferlinghetti published most of the influential Beat writers, including Kerouac, Burroughs, Corso, Snyder, Di Prima, and Jones.
City Lights Journal, Issue 1

Rip Rap
Gary Snyder GARY SNYDER HAD a profound influence on the Beat aesthetic with his devotion to Zen Buddhism and his adherence to a simple Spartan lifestyle. He attended Reed College with Philip Whalen and fell in with the Beat crowd through his association with Kenneth Rexroth. Snyder so impressed Ginsberg and Kerouac with his Thoreau-like existence that both became devotees of Buddhism. He and Kerouac climbed Yosemite's 12,000-foot Matterhorn mountain, and Kerouac always remembered the experience as one of the most memorable of his lifeso much so that he wrote Dharma Bums about Gary Snyder. Snyder left the San Francisco Beat scene in 1956 to pursue his study of Zen Buddhism in Japan. He returned twelve years later to find himself already established as a seminal figure in the new hippie scene. Rip Rap is Snyder's first published book of poetry.

Beat Zen, Square Zen, and Zen
Alan Watts ALTHOUGH ALAN WATT'S was born in Great Britain and did not consider himself a Beat, he lived around San Francisco in the late fifties and was one of the early writers to bring Eastern thought to the West. His books on the virtues of Zen Buddhism were widely read and greatly influenced the direction of the Beat movement. Beat Zen, Square Zen, and Zen, is Alan Watts' essay on Zen Buddhism.

Peyote Poem
Michael McClure MICHAEL MCCLURE ATTENDED Robert Duncan's poetry workshop at San Francisco State College and through Duncan, met Kenneth Rexroth. He became a regular on the San Francisco poetry scene, and it was McClure who arranged for Ginsberg to speak at the Six Gallery in November 1955. McClure would later gain notoriety for writing the play, The Beard (see page 41). The play was banned and the actors in the early productions were routinely arrested at the end of each performance. Peyote Poem is one of Michael McClure's first published poems.

Abomunist Manifesto
Bob Kaufman BOB KAUFMAN DREW his inspiration mainly from jazz music and was often referred to as "the jazz poet." He joined the Renaissance movement and was an integral part of that scene, though Kaufman preferred to recite his poems aloud from memory in cafes and bars. Only at his wife's insistence did he write his poems for publication. Kaufman often had run-ins with the police; in one instance they tore from the window of the Co-Existence Bagel Shop one of his poems that told of how Hitler "moved to San Francisco, became an ordinary policeman, devoted himself to stamping out the Beatniks." Kaufman helped found the short-lived, but influential magazine, Beatitude. The Abomunist Manifesto is his first published book of poetry.

The Galilee Hitch- Hiker
Richard Brautigan RICHARD BRAUTIGAN GAINED prominence in the sixties as one of the most celebrated of the hippie writers, but he migrated to San Francisco from his hometown of Tacoma, Washington, at the height of the Beat movement in the late fifties. Here he published several books of poetry in small presses, drawing his inspiration mainly from nineteenth century French poets. Brautigan's first published work, The Galilee Hitch-Hiker, depicts the French poet Baudelaire hitch- hiking through America.

Self-Portrait From Another Direction
Philip Whalen AN INTEGRAL MEMBER of the San Francisco Renaissance, Philip Whalen attended Reed College where he roomed with Gary Snyder. They shared an interest in Zen Buddhism and it was Gary Snyder who invited Whalen to read at the Six Gallery. Whalen was inspired, as was Ginsberg, by the poetry of William Carlos Williams, and he acknowledged his debt to the Beat writers: "Other people's ideas of beauty or conventional notions about beauty in any kind of art were being blasted out of my head by the new music and new jazz and new poetry that Allen was actually doing and that Gregory was doing and that Jack was doing and there were these fantastic letters coming in at rare intervals from North Africa from Burroughs to Allen and Allen was reading them aloud and I was looking at them and they popped my head in another direction."

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Rip Rap Gary Snyder	GARY SNYDER HAD a profound influence on the Beat aesthetic with his devotion to Zen Buddhism and his adherence to a simple Spartan lifestyle. He attended Reed College with Philip Whalen and fell in with the Beat crowd through his association with Kenneth Rexroth. Snyder so impressed Ginsberg and Kerouac with his Thoreau-like existence that both became devotees of Buddhism. He and Kerouac climbed Yosemite's 12,000-foot Matterhorn mountain, and Kerouac always remembered the experience as one of the most memorable of his lifeso much so that he wrote Dharma Bums about Gary Snyder. Snyder left the San Francisco Beat scene in 1956 to pursue his study of Zen Buddhism in Japan. He returned twelve years later to find himself already established as a seminal figure in the new hippie scene. Rip Rap is Snyder's first published book of poetry.

Beat Zen, Square Zen, and Zen Alan Watts	ALTHOUGH ALAN WATT'S was born in Great Britain and did not consider himself a Beat, he lived around San Francisco in the late fifties and was one of the early writers to bring Eastern thought to the West. His books on the virtues of Zen Buddhism were widely read and greatly influenced the direction of the Beat movement. Beat Zen, Square Zen, and Zen, is Alan Watts' essay on Zen Buddhism.

Peyote Poem Michael McClure	MICHAEL MCCLURE ATTENDED Robert Duncan's poetry workshop at San Francisco State College and through Duncan, met Kenneth Rexroth. He became a regular on the San Francisco poetry scene, and it was McClure who arranged for Ginsberg to speak at the Six Gallery in November 1955. McClure would later gain notoriety for writing the play, The Beard (see page 41). The play was banned and the actors in the early productions were routinely arrested at the end of each performance. Peyote Poem is one of Michael McClure's first published poems.

Abomunist Manifesto Bob Kaufman	BOB KAUFMAN DREW his inspiration mainly from jazz music and was often referred to as "the jazz poet." He joined the Renaissance movement and was an integral part of that scene, though Kaufman preferred to recite his poems aloud from memory in cafes and bars. Only at his wife's insistence did he write his poems for publication. Kaufman often had run-ins with the police; in one instance they tore from the window of the Co-Existence Bagel Shop one of his poems that told of how Hitler "moved to San Francisco, became an ordinary policeman, devoted himself to stamping out the Beatniks." Kaufman helped found the short-lived, but influential magazine, Beatitude. The Abomunist Manifesto is his first published book of poetry.

The Galilee Hitch- Hiker Richard Brautigan	RICHARD BRAUTIGAN GAINED prominence in the sixties as one of the most celebrated of the hippie writers, but he migrated to San Francisco from his hometown of Tacoma, Washington, at the height of the Beat movement in the late fifties. Here he published several books of poetry in small presses, drawing his inspiration mainly from nineteenth century French poets. Brautigan's first published work, The Galilee Hitch-Hiker, depicts the French poet Baudelaire hitch- hiking through America.

Self-Portrait From Another Direction Philip Whalen	AN INTEGRAL MEMBER of the San Francisco Renaissance, Philip Whalen attended Reed College where he roomed with Gary Snyder. They shared an interest in Zen Buddhism and it was Gary Snyder who invited Whalen to read at the Six Gallery. Whalen was inspired, as was Ginsberg, by the poetry of William Carlos Williams, and he acknowledged his debt to the Beat writers: "Other people's ideas of beauty or conventional notions about beauty in any kind of art were being blasted out of my head by the new music and new jazz and new poetry that Allen was actually doing and that Gregory was doing and that Jack was doing and there were these fantastic letters coming in at rare intervals from North Africa from Burroughs to Allen and Allen was reading them aloud and I was looking at them and they popped my head in another direction."