Biography
Kenneth Rexroth, an American poet, played a key role in establishing the San Francisco Renaissance in the closing years of the 1940s. Often linked to the Beat Movement, he acted as both guide and companion to numerous poets within that circle. During the 1920s he started placing poems in periodicals, where his writing regularly explored themes of nature, radical politics, love, and erotica. Beyond the page, he contributed to radio as a critic and commentator, remained engaged in radical politics, and performed his verse in nightclubs accompanied by jazz.
Born Kenneth Charles Marion Rexroth on December 22, 1905, in South Bend, Indiana, he lost his mother in 1916 and his father two years later. He then relocated to Chicago to reside with an aunt, studied at the Chicago Art School, and held various temporary positions, among them that of a soda jerk. At the same time his involvement in radical politics deepened, leading him to declaim poems from a soapbox on city sidewalks. In 1923–1924 he was arrested and imprisoned on the charge that he held partial ownership of a brothel.
Rexroth journeyed extensively, encountering prominent Surrealists in Paris during the middle of the decade, before making San Francisco his permanent base. By the late 1940s his own poems, together with his work introducing other writers on KPFA, had laid a solid groundwork for the San Francisco Renaissance. Poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti later observed, “…Rexroth was the leading elder poet in San Francisco in the 1950s when I arrived, and he had a program on KPFA. And he didn't review just literature. He reviewed every subject -- geology, anthropology, astronomy, philosophy -- and it seemed as he had this encyclopedic knowledge.”
Although Rexroth gave frequent public readings both in clubs and on KPFA, only a limited number survive in circulation. Several pieces—“I Didn't Want It…,” “Nicholas, You Ran Away…,” “A Girl in a Torn Nightgown…,” and “Do No Talk Anymore…”—appeared on the album Kenneth Rexroth at the Blackhawk, now unavailable. The sole recording still in print was made in 1957 for Poetry Readings in the Cellar, which also presented Lawrence Ferlinghetti backed by jazz. Of his approach Rexroth wrote, “We think that good poetry gives jazz words that match its own importance,” adding, “…The combination of poetry and jazz with the poet reciting, gives the poet a new kind of audience. Not necessarily a bigger one, but a more normal one -- ordinary people out for the evening, looking for civilized entertainment.”
He guided poets such as Ferlinghetti and was described by Time as the father of the Beat Movement. In 1955 he served as master of ceremonies at the opening of Six Gallery and attended Allen Ginsberg’s obscenity trial that year. Married four times, Rexroth devoted his later life to rendering Chinese and Japanese poetry into English. He died in Santa Barbara in 1982. A number of Rexroth’s works have also been available on the Web: see http://www.bopsecrets.org/rexroth/.
Born Kenneth Charles Marion Rexroth on December 22, 1905, in South Bend, Indiana, he lost his mother in 1916 and his father two years later. He then relocated to Chicago to reside with an aunt, studied at the Chicago Art School, and held various temporary positions, among them that of a soda jerk. At the same time his involvement in radical politics deepened, leading him to declaim poems from a soapbox on city sidewalks. In 1923–1924 he was arrested and imprisoned on the charge that he held partial ownership of a brothel.
Rexroth journeyed extensively, encountering prominent Surrealists in Paris during the middle of the decade, before making San Francisco his permanent base. By the late 1940s his own poems, together with his work introducing other writers on KPFA, had laid a solid groundwork for the San Francisco Renaissance. Poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti later observed, “…Rexroth was the leading elder poet in San Francisco in the 1950s when I arrived, and he had a program on KPFA. And he didn't review just literature. He reviewed every subject -- geology, anthropology, astronomy, philosophy -- and it seemed as he had this encyclopedic knowledge.”
Although Rexroth gave frequent public readings both in clubs and on KPFA, only a limited number survive in circulation. Several pieces—“I Didn't Want It…,” “Nicholas, You Ran Away…,” “A Girl in a Torn Nightgown…,” and “Do No Talk Anymore…”—appeared on the album Kenneth Rexroth at the Blackhawk, now unavailable. The sole recording still in print was made in 1957 for Poetry Readings in the Cellar, which also presented Lawrence Ferlinghetti backed by jazz. Of his approach Rexroth wrote, “We think that good poetry gives jazz words that match its own importance,” adding, “…The combination of poetry and jazz with the poet reciting, gives the poet a new kind of audience. Not necessarily a bigger one, but a more normal one -- ordinary people out for the evening, looking for civilized entertainment.”
He guided poets such as Ferlinghetti and was described by Time as the father of the Beat Movement. In 1955 he served as master of ceremonies at the opening of Six Gallery and attended Allen Ginsberg’s obscenity trial that year. Married four times, Rexroth devoted his later life to rendering Chinese and Japanese poetry into English. He died in Santa Barbara in 1982. A number of Rexroth’s works have also been available on the Web: see http://www.bopsecrets.org/rexroth/.