Below, the charismatic Kenneth Rexroth, American poet, essayist, and translator, discusses his new anthology of US poets, as well as the state of contemporary poetry (which he calls “scared, bled out, punch drunk and synthetic.”) He rants to James Laughlin, founder of New Directions publishing, who respected both Rexroth and Ezra Pound’s recommendations of authors and poets. Laughlin and Rexroth remained close friends throughout their lives, while Rexroth’s relationship with the Beat poets disintegrated due to their excessive Bohemian lifestyle.
24 VII [19]50
S[an] F[rancisco]
Dear Jim –
…I have finished an anthology of US poets born since 1900. It features [Elizabeth] Bishop, [Richard] Eberhart, [Thomas] Merton, [Josephine] Miles, [Kenneth] Patchen (if you are so disloyal to your own side as to issue a collection edited by Miles & excluding Patchen—you are a really exceptional bastard—maybe you just forgot to mention Patchen in your letter), [Laura] Riding, Rexroth, [Muriel] Rukeyser, [Karl] Shapiro, [John] Wheelwright, D[elmore] Schwartz, [Yvor] Winters, and you, you bastard you. There are ten pages to each, as in the B[ritish] P[oet]s, as a maximum for the better poets. Then the rest are represented by one or two poems each which makes it possible to include everybody of any historical importance from [James] Agee to [Louis] Zukofsky, and not use up to more than another 50 pages. This makes a 200 page book of poems—and then there is the introduction, very simple, lucid & judicious, pitched at the students of English classes. I have already buttered up all sorts of poetry teachers around the country. Not specifically about this, of course, but there is no question but what it is in great demand….
I think you will notice that my list of US poets since 1900 is a good deal more judicious than the one you sent me. Fearing, Bishop, Patchen, Riding, Wheelwright, Winters, and li’l ole you, are important poets, however much they may be out of date at the moment—or disliked in certain circles. Your list was of the academic bon ton—the people most professors approve of. Actually, Patchen is worth most of them put together. I have not sent you this book because I know if I do it will tie up my publishing schedule for years, just as the BPs did. You can have it as soon as I see the proofs of The Dragon & the Unicorn from the Annual and of the plays.
I must admit that the poets since 1900 dont make the impression that the Sandburg-Frost-Lindsay-Robinson, or the Imagists, or the “Others” generations did. 2 world wars have taken the starch out of them—not as bad as France, but it is really noticeable. Outside of the 10 or twelve leaders —the rest are pretty trivial, but of course I feel that way because I spent a year reading everything they’ve written.
…When you only have one or two poems of the lesser ones—they usually come through c something quite impressive. Maybe they actually make a better showing than pages of Miles & Bishop. Certainly the history of US poetry since The Dial, Broom, Little Review, Pagan, and Others makes interesting reading. There is no question but what is wrong is that so many have cut themselves off from all real experience in the universities. Actually, the best are Eberhart, Fearing, Merton, Laughlin, Patchen, Rukeyser, Riding, & maybe Winters. Only one of these is a professor. None work for Henry Luce. Only one—Rukeyser— may have been a member of the Communist Party—none ever worked for Hollywood. It is these activities which have made contemporary poetry in bulk what it is, scared, bled out, punch drunk and synthetic.
You are so damn sure that I am disgraceful and that some professor is so much more au fait. Look—in the last year I have been offered teaching jobs on my own terms at Bennington, Black Mt., the University of Washington, a couple other places that skip my mind—these are the ones that wrote several letters or had me lecture & looked me over. For a guy that went to Harvard you sure have an undue respect for the bunny rabbits who teach in State Universities. The only reason they’re there is they’re afraid to go out in the rain. You see—you never had to make your living and you simply don’t understand what the word compromise means—nobody ever asked you to. I am 45 and nobody now asks me—I can teach anything I want—in fact—it shocks them that I dont plan to give seminars in Nat[hanael] West bastards—with their Scottys, their tweeds, their Blue Boar, their New Directions books, sets of Henry James, Kafka, Kierkegaard, and the [C. S. Lewis] Screwtape Letters. But these are the best. The rest have been mumbling through every other morning at nine for the last 30 years. I would rather be locked up c Ez[ra Pound] and his cronies in the harmless senile ward at St. Bet’s. But, dont forget—they all like me, the older generation because I am learned, the younger because I am a ND author—Like Kafka. Did I ever tell you about Eleanor Clark asking me why I had all the Loeb Greek & Latin poets? I said, “Why, I read them, what do you think?” Says she, “Ah, uh, not for pleasure?”
What in the hell will I do with the O.V. Lubicz-Milosz poems? You could put them in the Annual translated anonymously if you want. You see—he is specially good for the Annual because he shot into popularity after the war and after his own death, because he speaks exactly the tone of broken hearted post-war Paris. I suppose I am one of the few people in the world in either French or English who took him seriously before. I dont like to waste all that work and he is not important enough for a book like the [Paul] Eluard or [Jules] Supervielle. By the way, want me to do some Supervielle? I’ll send you a couple poems. . . .
c love
Kenneth
From Kenneth Rexroth and James Laughlin: Selected Letters. Edited by Lee Bartlett. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1991. pp 150-153.
FURTHER READING
Listen to Kenneth Rexroth read his own poetry and translations from One Hundred Poems from the Chinese and In Defense of the Earth at the San Francisco Poetry Center.
Read a 1991 interview with Rexroth wherein he reflects on his relationship with James Laughlin and their history.