Kenneth Rexroth

Kenneth Rexroth ( born December 22, 1905 in South Bend, Indiana, † June 6, 1982 in Santa Barbara, California ) was an American poet, essayist and literary critic. He is considered a " father" of the Beat Generation.

Biography

Rexroth, who earned his education largely self, first worked as a laborer in the 1920s. During the 1930s he was a well-known leading figure of libertaristischen movement on the West Coast of the United States. A few years later he began to write and dense. He published in 1940 his first book of poems titled " In What Hour? ". Then he was next to other well-known writers, such as Conrad Aiken, Nelson Algren, Saul Bellow, John Cheever, Ralph Ellison, John Steinbeck, Claude McKay, Zora Neale Hurston and Richard Wright involved including the Federal Writers ' Project, a job creation measure of the American New Deal government, whose most famous product was the now famous leaders of the individual states. Even writers were able to be brought into the Great Depression of wages and bread.

During World War II Rexroth refused military service and was working as a nurse in a hospital in San Francisco. In 1945 he founded in San Francisco the Libertarian Circle, the joined painters such as Ronald Bladen. In April 1947, Rexroth next to Robert Duncan, Jack Spicer and other poets occurred on the organized by Madeline Gleason " Festival of Modern Poetry". It was the first event of its kind in San Francisco and the start of the San Francisco Renaissance. Rexroth is thus regarded as the founding father with these Renaissance. Rexroth but rather belonged to the second generation of the " modernist poetry", the " objectivist poets". He kept correspondence with Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams. He was heavily influenced by jazz and was among the first American poets dedicated to Japanese poetry ( haiku ) employed.

In the following years there were further publications as:

  • " The Signature of All Things", 1950
  • "The Dragon and the Unicorn ", 1952
  • " In Defence of the Earth ," 1965
  • "Collected Shorter Poems", 1967
  • " Longer Works", 1968

On October 7, 1955, he took over the moderation of a reading ( by some referred to as jamming ) of poems, which was held at the Six Gallery in San Francisco. It was the first major public reading by writers of the Beat Generation and was the continuation of the San Francisco Renaissance. Previously, he had already introduced longer time young writers such as Allen Ginsberg and Kenneth Patchen in his weekly salon. Later, he was one of the authors who participated in the activities organized by the Esalen Institute poetry readings.

The most important literary critical essays eventually published in 1972 under the title "The Rexroth Reader". In 1973, he was editor of the anthology " Four Young Women - Poems ," appeared in the poems of young female poets Jessica Hagedorn, Alice Karle, Barbara Szerlip and Carol Tinker.

Together with Ikoko Atsumi he published in 1977

  • "Woman poets of Japan ," New Directions Pub. Corp. , New York 1977, ISBN 0-8112-0820-6,

In which he dealt with the Japanese poet Ono no Komachi and inner Ise, leading to the so-called " Thirty-Six Immortals of Poetry " ( sanjūrokkasen ) belong.

Last yet Publications by him appeared in the literary magazine founded in 1981, " The Action - Journal of politics, literature, art."

German -language editions

  • Falling leaves, earlier snow. 10 poems. From the American Reinhard and Ingrid Harbaum. Altaquito, Göttingen 1988, ISBN 3-923588-20-8
  • Disengagement. The Art of the Beat Generation. An essay. From the American of Hanfried flower. Göttingen 1990, ISBN 3-923588-23-2
  • Letter from San Francisco. Two essays on American literature. Altaquito, Göttingen 1994, ISBN 3-923588-30-5
  • The love poems of Marichiko. Sixty poems. From the American Reinhard Harbaum. Göttingen 1996, ISBN 3-923588-40-2
  • The city of the moon. Late poems. Göttingen 1999, ISBN 3-923588-49-6
  • The red cliff. Kenneth Rexroth handed Su Tung P'o. Edition Saxifraga, Göttingen 2009, ISBN 978-3-923588-74-9
  • The bestiary. From the U.S. translated by Mitch Cohen and Wolfgang Heyder. German and English. Corvinus Press, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-942280-07-5

Background literature

  • M. Gibson: Kenneth Rexroth. Biography, 1982

Source

  • " Chambers Biographical Dictionary," S. 1276, Edinburgh 2002, ISBN 0-550-10051-2
  • Author
  • Literary critic
  • Americans
  • Born 1905
  • Died in 1982
  • Man
South Bend (Indiana) Robert Duncan (poet) Six Gallery reading Lady Ise Integrated Authority File
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