The Berkeley Poetry Conference was an event in which individuals presented their views and poems in seminars, lectures, individual readings, and group readings at California Hall on the Berkeley

University of California, Berkeley

The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...

 Campus of the University of California

University of California

The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...

 during July 12 – July 24, 1965.

The conference was organized through the University of California Extension Programs. The advisory committee consisted of Thomas Parkinson

Thomas Parkinson

Thomas F. Parkinson Professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley, was a poet in his own right; an expert on the poetry of W. B. Yeats; and one of the first academic authorities to write about the Beat poets and novelists of San Francisco in the 1950s and 1960s...

, Professor of English at U.C. Berkeley, Donald M. Allen

Donald Allen

Donald Merriam Allen , influential editor, publisher, and translator of contemporary American literature. He is perhaps best known for his project The New American Poetry 1945-1960 , among the several important anthologies of contemporary American innovative writing he made available to the public...

, West Coast Editor of Grove Press, Robert Duncan

Robert Duncan (poet)

Robert Duncan was an American poet and a student of H.D. and the Western esoteric tradition who spent most of his career in and around San Francisco. Though associated with any number of literary traditions and schools, Duncan is often identified with the poets of the New American Poetry and Black...

, Poet, and Richard Baker

Richard Baker

Richard Baker may refer to:*Richard Baker , English chronicler*Richard Baker , BBC broadcaster*Richard Baker , British composer and conductor*Richard Baker Richard Baker may refer to:*Richard Baker (chronicler) (1568–1645), English chronicler*Richard Baker (broadcaster) (born 1925), BBC...

, Program Coordinator.

Roster

The roster of scheduled poets consisted of:
Robin Blaser

Robin Blaser

Robin Francis Blaser was an author and poet in both the United States and Canada.-Personal background:Born in Denver, Colorado, Blaser grew up in Idaho, and came to Berkeley, California, in 1944. There he met Jack Spicer and Robert Duncan, becoming a key figure in the San Francisco Renaissance of...

, Robert Creeley

Robert Creeley

Robert Creeley was an American poet and author of more than sixty books. He is usually associated with the Black Mountain poets, though his verse aesthetic diverged from that school's. He was close with Charles Olson, Robert Duncan, Allen Ginsberg, John Wieners and Ed Dorn. He served as the Samuel P...

, Richard Duerden, Robert Duncan, Allen Ginsberg

Allen Ginsberg

Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...

, Leroi Jones (Amiri Baraka), Joanne Kyger

Joanne Kyger

Joanne Kyger is an American poet. Her poetry is influenced by her practice of Zen Buddhism and her ties to the poets of Black Mountain, the San Francisco Renaissance, and the Beat generation.-Overview:...

, Ron Loewinsohn

Ron Loewinsohn

Ron Loewinsohn is an American poet and novelist.Trout Fishing in America is dedicated to Loewinsohn and poet Jack Spicer.- Works :* Watermelons, New York: Totem Press, 1959...

, Charles Olson

Charles Olson

Charles Olson , was a second generation American modernist poet who was a link between earlier figures such as Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams and the New American poets, which includes the New York School, the Black Mountain School, the Beat poets, and the San Francisco Renaissance...

, Gary Snyder

Gary Snyder

Gary Snyder is an American poet , as well as an essayist, lecturer, and environmental activist . Snyder is a winner of a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry...

, Jack Spicer

Jack Spicer

Jack Spicer was an American poet often identified with the San Francisco Renaissance. In 2009, My Vocabulary Did This to Me: The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer won the American Book Award for poetry.-Life and work:...

, George Stanley, Lew Welch

Lew Welch

Lewis Barrett Welch, Jr. was an American poet associated with the Beat generation of poets, artists, and iconoclasts.Welch published and performed widely during the 1960s...

, and John Wieners

John Wieners

John Joseph Wieners was an American lyric poet.-Biography:Born in Milton, Massachusetts, Wieners attended St. Gregory Elementary School in Dorchester, Massachusetts and Boston College High School. From 1950 to 1954, he studied at Boston College, where he earned his A.B...

. Leroi Jones (Amiri Baraka) did not participate; Ed Dorn was pressed into service.

Seminars

• July 12 – July 16, Gary Snyder
• July 12 – July 16, Robert Duncan
• July 19 – July 23, LeRoi Jones (scheduled)
• July 19 – July 23, Charles Olson

Poets

• July 12, New Poets
• July 13, Gary Snyder
• July 14, John Wieners
• July 15, Jack Spicer
• July 16, Robert Duncan
• July 17, Robin Blaser, George Stanley and Richard Duerden
• July 19, New Poets
• July 20, Robert Creeley
• July 21, Allen Ginsberg
• July 22, LeRoi Jones
• July 23, Charles Olson
• July 24, Ron Loewinsohn, Joanne Kyger and Lew Welch

Lectures

• July 13, Robert Duncan, Psyche-Myth and the Moment of Truth
• July 14, Jack Spicer, Poetry and Politics
• July 16, Gary Snyder, Poetry and the Primitive
• July 20, Charles Olson, Causal Mythology
• July 21, Ed Dorn, The Poet, the People, the Spirit
• July 22, Allen Ginsberg, What's Happening on Earth
• July 23, Robert Creeley, Sense of Measure

Readings

• July 13, Gary Snyder, introduced by Thomas Parkinson.
• July 14, John Wieners, introduced by Robert Creeley.
• July 15, Jack Spicer, introduced by Thomas Parkinson.
• July 16, Robert Duncan, introduced by Thomas Parkinson.
• July 17, Robin Blaser, George Stanley, Richard Duerden, introduced by Robert Duncan.
• July 18, Young Poets: Jim Boyack, Robin Eichele, Victor Coleman, Bob Hogg, Stephen Rodefer, David Franks, introduced by Victor Coleman.
• July 19, Special Poetry Reading: John Sinclair, Lenore Kandel, Ted Berrigan, Ed Sanders, introduced by Allen Ginsberg.
• July 20, Ed Dorn, introduced by Robert Creeley.
• July 21, Allen Ginsberg, introduced by Thomas Parkinson.
• July 22, Robert Creeley, introduced by Robert Duncan.
• July 23, Charles Olson, introduced by Robert Duncan.
• July 24, Ron Loewinsohn, Joanne Kyger, Lew Welch, introduced by Robert Duncan.
• July 25, Young Poets from the Bay Area: Gene Fowler, Jim Wehlage, Eileen Adams, Doug Palmer, Sam Thomas, Gail Dusenbery, Drum Hadley, Lowell Levant, Jim Thurber, introduced by Gary Snyder.

There was a reading by David Bromige

David Bromige

David Mansfield Bromige is a Canadian poet who resided in northern California from 1962 onward. Bromige published thirty books, each one so different from the others as to seem to be the work of a different author...

, David Schaff, James Koller and Ken Irby, but the tape has been lost.

During this event, Charles Olson was designated President of Poets, and Allen Ginsberg, Secretary of State of Poetry. Robert Creeley remarked, "There will never be another poetry conference in Berkeley; Berkeley is too bizarre."

External links

• There are sound recordings archived at the U.C. Berkeley Language Center.
• U.B. Poetics dicussion group