{"id":5157,"date":"2010-05-03T00:00:40","date_gmt":"2010-05-02T22:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=5157"},"modified":"2010-04-27T17:24:53","modified_gmt":"2010-04-27T15:24:53","slug":"kenneth-rexroth-1905-1982-the-poetry-of-relevance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2010\/05\/kenneth-rexroth-1905-1982-the-poetry-of-relevance\/","title":{"rendered":"Kenneth Rexroth (1905-1982): The Poetry of Relevance"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Bridge of Beauty and Understanding<\/em><\/p>\n

Only the bridge of Beauty will be strong enough for crossing from the bank of Darkness to the side of Light <\/em>– Nicholas Roerich<\/p>\n

The United Nations General Assembly in resolution A\/RES.62\/90 has proclaimed the year 2010 as the International Year for the Rapprochement of Cultures \u201cto promote universal respect for, and observation and protection of, all human rights and fundamental freedoms.\u201d Cultures encompass not only the arts and humanities but also different ways of living together, value systems and traditions.\u00a0 Thus 2010 should provide real opportunities for dialogue among cultures.\u00a0 It is true that to an unprecedented degree people are meeting together in congresses, conferences and universities all over the globe. However, in themselves, such meetings are not dialogue and do not necessarily lead to rapprochement of cultures. There is a need to reach a deeper level.\u00a0 Reaching such deeper levels takes patience, tolerance, the ability to take a longer-range view, and creativity.\u00a0 Thus we are pleased to present the creative efforts of individuals who have helped to create bridges of understanding among cultures.<\/p>\n

Kenneth Rexroth (1905-1982): The Poetry of Relevance<\/strong><\/p>\n

The centuries have changed little in this art,<\/em><\/p>\n

The subjects are still the same.<\/em><\/p>\n

For Christ\u2019s sake take off your clothes and get into bed<\/em><\/p>\n

We are not going to live forever;<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

Kenneth Rexroth, an American poet often considered a father figure to the Beat poets of the 1950 San Francisco scene, was also a world citizen who blended the influences of Japan and China, of failed revolutionary movements like the Paris Commune, the Kronstadt sailors\u2019 revolt in Russia, along with a deep sense of the beauty of nature.\u00a0 He was largely self-taught, having dropped out of secondary school.\u00a0 He read widely but was always mistrustful of academic trends in poetry, finding most of it \u201cdull academic stuff by petty people who lead dull, petty, academic lives.\u00a0 In the right circles it has been thought terribly unfashionable to write about anything so vulgar as love, death, nature \u2014 any of the real things that happen to real people.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the late 1960s when US universities tried to calm student agitation by having courses that were \u201crelevant\u201d to their interests, Rexroth taught some courses at San Francisco State College.\u00a0 Nevertheless, he had a dim view of academic teaching. \u201cIf a college student\u2019s mother died, his girl got pregnant, he acquired a loathsome disease, or he decided to become a conscientious objector, would he go to his philosophy professor for advice?\u201d<\/p>\n

Rexroth\u2019s model was Walt Whitman and his Leaves of Grass.<\/em> Whitman envisions \u201ca social order whose essence is the liberation and universalization of selfhood\u2026participants in a universal creative effort in which each discovers his ultimate individuation\u2026Today we know that it is Whitman\u2019s vision or nothing.\u201d\u00a0 Like Whitman, Rexroth stressed an ethical mysticism, citing other major influences.\u00a0 \u201cFor better statements I refer you to the work of Martin Buber, D.T. Suzuki, Piotr Kropotkin, or for that matter, to the Gospels and the saying of Buddha, or to Lao Tze and Chung Tze.\u201d<\/p>\n

His references to D.T. Suzuki, who introduced Zen thought to the USA and to the Chinese Taoists Lao Tze and Chung Tze are a sign of his affinity to Taoist and Buddhist thought. His short summery of the essence of Taoism also reflected his philosophy of life:<\/p>\n

The combinations<\/em><\/p>\n

Of the world are unstable<\/em><\/p>\n

By nature. Take it easy.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em>But Rexroth\u2019s Taoism had an activist tone to it. His \u201ctake it easy\u201d is an echo of Pete Seeger\u2019s trade-union organizing song Talking Union <\/em>which ends \u201cTake it easy, but take it.\u201d<\/p>\n

As in many of the great Chinese and Japanese poems, the outer landscape corresponds to the inner one, the macrocosm to the microcosm:<\/p>\n

My wife has been swimming in the breakers,<\/p>\n

She comes up the beach to meet me, nude<\/p>\n

Sparkling with water, singing high and clear<\/p>\n

Against the surf.\u00a0 The sun crosses<\/p>\n

The hills and fills her hair, as it lights<\/p>\n

The moon and glorifies the sea<\/p>\n

And deep in the empty mountains melts<\/p>\n

The snow of Winter and the glaciers<\/p>\n

Of ten thousand\u00a0 years.<\/p>\n

Rexroth especially appreciates the Mahayana Buddhist ideal of the bodhisattva. \u201cA bodhisattva, in case you don\u2019t know, is one who, at the brink of absorption into Nirvana, turns away with the vow that he shall not enter final peace until he can bring all other beings with him.\u201d\u00a0 And Rexroth puts into poetic structure the words of the American Socialist leader Eugene Debs who had spent years in prison for his opposition to World War I:<\/p>\n

While there is a lower class,<\/em><\/p>\n

I am in it.\u00a0 While there is<\/em><\/p>\n

A criminal element,<\/em><\/p>\n

I am of it.\u00a0 Where there is<\/em><\/p>\n

A soul in jail, I am not free.<\/em><\/p>\n

Yet he always rejected the notion that the arts should be subordinated to political demands.\u00a0 He felt that lyrics that communicate genuine personal vision are ultimately more subversive than explicit propaganda. He called erotic love \u201cone of the highest forms of contemplation\u201d and he stressed its intensity in a Japanese style:<\/p>\n

Making love with you<\/em><\/p>\n

Is like drinking sea water.<\/em><\/p>\n

The more I drink<\/em><\/p>\n

The thirstier I become,<\/em><\/p>\n

Until nothing can slake my thirst<\/em><\/p>\n

But to drink the entire sea.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

Rexroth was always enthusiastic about ethical world-affirming mysticism, always quick to encourage the joining of contemplation and community;<\/p>\n

What is taken in <\/em><\/p>\n

In comtemplation is poured out<\/em><\/p>\n

In love.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

For Kenneth Rexroth\u2019s early life until he moved to California in 1927 see his An<\/em> Autobiographical Novel<\/em> (New York: Doubleday, 1966)<\/p>\n

Most of his poetry is in two collections: Collected Shorter Poems <\/em>(New York: New Directions, 1966) and Collected Longer Poems <\/em>(New York: New Directions, 1968)<\/p>\n

For an analysis of his bridge-building efforts with Asian culture, see Morgan Gibson.<\/p>\n

Revolutionary Rexroth: Poet of East-West Wisdom <\/em>(Archon, 1986)<\/p>\n

_______________________<\/p>\n

Rene Wadlow, Representative to the United Nations, Geneva, Association of World Citizens, Member of TRANSCEND- A Network for Peace, Development and Environment.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The United Nations General Assembly has proclaimed the year 2010 as the International Year for the Rapprochement of Cultures. Thus we are pleased to present the creative efforts of individuals who have helped to create bridges of understanding among cultures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-united-nations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5157\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}