Tag Archives: San Francisco Renaissance

Robert Duncan

Described by Kenneth Rexroth as “one of the most accomplished, one of the most influential” of the postwar American poets, Robert Duncan was an important part of both the Black Mountain school of poetry, led by Charles Olson, and the San Francisco Renaissance, whose other members included poets Jack Spicer and Robin Blaser. A distinctive voice in American poetry, Duncan’s idiosyncratic poetics drew on myth, occultism, religion—including the theosophical tradition in which he was raised—and innovative writing practices such as projective verse and composition by field.

further reading…

Robert Duncan: Books & Broadsides

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Section A:
Books, Pamphlets, Broadsides, Separate Publications

A1. HEAVENLY CITY, EARTHLY CITY
Berkeley: Bern Porter, 1947
(Bertholf A1)

A2. POEMS, 1948-49
Berkeley: Berkeley Miscellany Editions, 1949
(Bertholf A2)

A3. MEDIEVAL SCENES
San Francisco: Centaur Press, 1950
(Bertholf A3)

A4. FRAGMENTS OF A DISORDERED DEVOTION
a. First edition, privately published:
San Francisco: privately printed, Fall 1952
Hand-sewn in printed and hand-colored covers in ink and crayons, 6″ x 8.25″, 28 pages, 50 numbered and signed copies, multilith printed. Text is reproduced from the author’s holograph. (Bertholf A4a)

b. Second edition, first issue:
San Francisco: Gnomon Press, 1966
Saddle-stapled in printed and illustrated wrappers, 6.5″ x 8″, 24 pages, 70 copies distributed but withdrawn from sale due to the cover being rejected by Duncan. Cover by Anton Van Dalen. Produced jointly by Victor Coleman’s Island Press in Toronto and Jonathan Greene’s Gnomon Press in San Francisco. (Bertholf A4b)

c. Second edition, second issue:
San Francisco: Gnomon Press, 1966
(Bertholf A4c)

A5. THE SONG OF THE BORDER-GUARD
First edition:
Black Mountain Graphics Workshop, 1952.
Folio broadside measuring 12.5″ x 19.5″ tipped into illustrated wrappers, 200 copies, letterpress printed by Nicola Cernovich and Joel Oppenheimer. Cover art by Cy Twombly. (Bertholf A5)

A6. BOOB, Nos. 1 & 2
First edition, privately published:
(San Francisco): privately published, (1952)
Set of broadsides measuring 11″ x 8.25, 250 copies. (Bertholf A6)







A7. FAUST FOUTU
a. First edition, privately published:
San Francisco: Privately published, 1953
Corner-stapled sheets, 8.5″ x 11″, 70 pages, 100 copies, mimeograph printed. (Bertholf A7a)



b. Second edition, abbreviated copies:
San Francisco: White Rabbit Press, March 1958
Hand-sewn in printed wrappesrs, 6.5″ x 8.5″, 17 pages, 300 copies. (Bertholf A7b)



c. Third edition, regular copies
Stinson Beach: Enkidu Surrogate, November 1959
Saddle-stapled in printed and illustrated wrappers, 7″ x 8.5″, 72 pages, 700 copies. Cover art by Robert Duncan. (Bertholf A7c)

d. Third edition, signed and illustrated copies
Stinson Beach: Enkidu Surrogate, November 1959
Saddle-stapled in printed and illustrated wrappers, 7″ x 8.5″, 72 pages, 50 illustrated and signed copies. Cover art by Robert Duncan. (Bertholf A7d)

A8. CAESAR’S GATE
a. First edition, regular copies:
Palma de Mallorca: Divers Press, 1955
(Bertholf A8a)

b. First edition, numbered copies:
Mallorca: Divers Press, 1955
(Bertholf A8b)

c. First edition, lettered copies:
Mallorca: Divers Press, 1955
(Bertholf A8c)

d. Second edition, first hardbound impression:
Sand Dollar, 1972.
(Bertholf A8d)

e. Second edition, first paperbound impression:
Sand Dollar, 1972.
(Bertholf A8e)

f. Second edition, second paperbound impression:
Sand Dollar, 1972.
(Bertholf A8f)

A9. LETTERS
a. First edition, paperbound copies:
Highlands: Jonathan Williams, 1958
(Bertholf A9a)

b. First edition, hardbound copies, first state:
Highlands: Jonathan Williams, 1958
(Bertholf A9b)

c. First edition, hardbound copies, second state:
Highlands: Jonathan Williams, 1958
(Bertholf A9c)

d. First edition, hardbound, decorated copies:
Highlands: Jonathan Williams, 1958
(Bertholf A9d)

A10. SELECTED POEMS
San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1959
(Bertholf A10)

A11. THE OPENING OF THE FIELD
New York: Grove, 1960
(Bertholf A11)

A12. AS TESTIMONY
San Francisco: White Rabbit ,1964
(Bertholf A12)

A13. WRITING WRITING
Albuquerque: Sumbooks, 1964
(Bertholf A13)





A14. ROOTS AND BRANCHES
New York: Scribner’s, 1964
(Bertholf A14)

A15. WINE
Berkeley: Oyez, 1964
(Bertholf A15)

A16. MEDEA AT KOLCHIS / THE MAIDEN HEAD
Berkeley: Oyez, 1965
(Bertholf A16)

A17. THE SWEETNESS AND GREATNESS OF DANTE’S DIVINE COMEDY
San Francisco: Open Space, 1965
(Bertholf A17) (Johnston A32)

A18. UPRISING
Berkeley: Oyez, 1965
(Bertholf A18)

A19. OF THE WAR: PASSAGES 22-27
Berkeley: Oyez, 1966
(Bertholf A19)

A20. THE YEARS AS CATCHES: FIRST POEMS, 1939-46
Berkeley: Oyez, 1966.
(Bertholf A20)

Jack Spicer

youngspicer

 

Although known primarily among a coterie of poets in the San Francisco Bay Area at the time of his death in 1965, Jack Spicer has slowly become a towering figure in American poetry. He was born in Los Angeles in 1925 to midwestern parents and raised in a Calvinist home. While attending college at the University of California-Berkeley, Spicer met fellow poets Robin Blaser and Robert Duncan. The friendship among these three poets would develop into what they referred to as “The Berkeley Renaissance,” which would in turn become the San Francisco Renaissance after Spicer, Blaser and Duncan moved to San Francisco in the 1950s.


Jack Spicer Checklist:

Section A: Books, Chapbooks, and Pamphlets
Section B: Broadsides, Posters, and Postcards
Section C: Contributions to Books and Other Publications
Section D: Contributions to Periodicals
Section E: Miscellaneous Prose


At Berkeley, Spicer studied linguistics, finishing all but his dissertation for a PhD in Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse. In 1950 he lost his teaching assistantship after refusing to sign a “loyalty oath” to the United States, which the University of California required of all its employees under the Sloan-Levering Act. Spicer taught briefly at the University of Minnesota and worked for a short period of time in the rare books room at the Boston Public Library, but he lived the majority of his life in San Francisco working as a researcher in linguistics.

jack-spicer
Jack Spicer at the opening of the 6 Gallery, Halloween 1954. Photo by Robert Berg.

Spicer helped to form the 6 Gallery with five painter friends in 1954. It was at the 6 Gallery during Spicer’s sojourn east that Allen Ginsberg first read Howl. As a native Californian, Spicer tended to view the Beats as usurpers and criticized the poetry and self-promotion of poets like Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, as well as the Beat ethos in general. Always weary of labels and definitions, Spicer tended to associate with small, intimate groups of poets who lived in the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco. Spicer acted as a mentor and teacher to these young poets by running poetry workshops and providing (sometimes caustic) advice for young poets.

In a 1975 New York Times article, Richard Ellman concluded: “Jack Spicer’s poems are always poised just on the face side of language, dipping all the way over toward that sudden flip, as if an effort were being made through feeling strongly in simple words to sneak up on the event of a man ruminating about something, or celebrating something, without rhetorical formulae, in his own beautiful inept awkwardness. It’s that poised ineptitude and awkwardness of the anti-academic teacher, the scholar of linguistics who can’t say what he knows in formal language, and has chosen to be very naive and look and hear and do. Spicer was not a very happy poet. He was obsessed with possibilities he could only occasionally realize, and too aware of contemporary life to settle for anything less in his work than what he probably could not achieve. He must have been a great spirit.”


Further Reading:

Herndon, James. EVERYTHING AS EXPECTED
San Francisco, Winter 1973

Foster, Edward Halsey. JACK SPICER 
Boise: Boise State University, 1991

Killian, Kevin and Lewis Ellingham. POET BE LIKE GOD: JACK SPICER AND THE BERKELEY RENAISSANCE
Hanover: Wesleyan University Press, 1998

Gizzi, Peter. THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT THE COLLECTED LECTURES OF JACK SPICER
Hanover: University Press of New England, 1998

Gizzi, Peter and Kevin Killian. MY VOCABULARY DID THIS TO ME: THE COLLECTED POETRY OF JACK SPICER
Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 2008


Online Resources:

Academy of American Poets
The Bancroft Library – Jack Spicer Papers 1939-1982
Book Forum
Emory University – Jack Spicer Papers
Jacket Magazine – excerpt from Vancouver Lecture 3
Penn Sound – audio recordings
Poetry Foundation
University of Buffalo 


References Consulted:

Clay, Steven and Rodney Phillips. A SECRET LOCATION ON THE LOWER EAST SIDE: ADVENTURES IN WRITING, 1960-1980
New York: New York Public Library / Granary Books, 1998

Dorbin, Sanford. A CHECKLIST OF THE PUBLISHED WRITING OF JACK SPICER*
Sacramento: California Librarian, October 1970
[* the first (and only?) checklist of Jack Spicer’s writing]

Johnston, Alastair. A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE AUERHAHN PRESS & ITS SUCCESSOR DAVE HASELWOOD BOOKS
Berkeley: Poltroon Press, 1976

Johnston, Alastair. A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE WHITE RABBIT PRESS
Berkeley: Poltroon Press, 1985

Lepper, Gary M. A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION TO SEVENTY-FIVE MODERN AMERICAN AUTHORS
Berkeley: Serendipity Books, 1976