[1] However, others (e.g., Alan Watts, Ralph J. Gleason) felt this renaissance was a broader phenomenon and should be seen as also encompassing the visual and performing arts, philosophy, cross-cultural interests (particularly those that involved Asian cultures), and new social sensibilities.

During the 1940s, both she and Rexroth befriended a group of younger Berkeley poets consisting of Robert Duncan, and William Everson; Jack Spicer and Robin Blaser became involved in the late 40s.

These poets, who largely became known through oral performance in the Bay Area, include the following thirteen: Brother Antoninus (William Everson), Robin Blaser, Jack Spicer, James Broughton, Madeline Gleason, Helen Adam, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Bruce Boyd, Kirby Doyle, Richard Duerden, Philip Lamantia, Ebbe Borregaard, and Lew Welch.

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: ... San Francisco Renaissance is a grouping that I've argued before was largely a fiction created by Allen's need to organize his materials[24]Around the same time that Duncan, Spicer and Blaser were at Berkeley, Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen and Lew Welch were attending Reed College in Portland, Oregon.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti had been studying for a doctorate at the Sorbonne and, while in Paris, met Kenneth Rexroth, who later persuaded him to go to San Francisco to experience the growing literary scene there.

Snyder and Whalen, along with Michael McClure, were among the poets who performed at the famous Six Gallery poetry reading that Kenneth Rexroth organized in San Francisco on October 7, 1955.

The Bay Area-based philosopher and writer Alan Watts, in his autobiography, mentioned that by around 1960 or so "... something else was on the way, in religion, in music, in ethics and sexuality, in our attitudes to nature, and in our whole style of life", and described characteristics of a "Clear School" of poetry on whose roll he included "Alice Meynell, Walter de la Mare, Emily Dickinson, Kenneth Rexroth, Karl Shapiro, Jean Burden, and Eric Barker (to name but a few)."

Watts asserted that these poets employ traditional rhythms and "say what they have to say with an easy, natural clarity which avoids both clichés and obscure allusions or bizarre, far-fetched images.

The "underground press" that developed in America and elsewhere in the 1960s had one of its most interesting and colorful examples in the San Francisco Oracle which reflected the hippie culture and other aspects of the counterculture.