So I had to get up at three AM and now i’m in the carpeted monolith called the Moline airport and someone behind me is making the chair squeak in rhythm with her gum chewing. As Stravinsky said, one finds modern compositions any place.
S.K.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
For my money the most important poet in the San Francisco Literary Renaissance was Kenneth Rexroth, the so-called “Father of the Beats”.
Kenneth Rexroth was born in 1905 in South Bend, Indiana, although Chicago was the most important city in his youth. After his mother’s early death the poet quite literally grew up on the streets of Chicago where he developed what would become a life-long attraction to the labor movements of the American left. Self-educated in an impressive array of literatures and languages, Rexroth is best known for his translations of classical Chinese poetry, although he also translated poetry from the Japanese, French, Greek, Latin, Italian, and Spanish. He published 54 books of poetry and prose including collections of essays on topics ranging from jazz to literary modernism, as well as Gnosticism and medieval Christianity. Rexroth’s autobiography, which the poet called an “autobiographical novel,” offers an incisive portrait of the American left during the twenties and thirties. Kenneth Rexroth died in 1982. The Collected Poems of Kenneth Rexroth, edited by Sam Hamill and Bradford Morrow was published in 2002.
Rexroth’s work anticipates post-modernism with its spiritual and philosophical attraction to personal experience. By championing the individual in search of sacred life Rexroth’s poetry owes more to Walt Whitman and D.H. Lawrence than to mid-twentieth century American modernism. Rexroth’s poetry is marked by vivid imagery and an appeal to mystical engagement with the natural world. Even so, his poems are erudite and informed by multiple literary and philosophical traditions. Describing Rexroth’s method of composition, Sam Hamill notes that the poet had found his voice by the 1940’s:
“He adopted something similar to what has since been labeled the”ideogrammic method” advocated by Pound. All being becomes contemporary in his hands. He borrows, he layers …Echoes and paraphrases and translations of ancient classics of the East and West become an integral part of the poem in progress, rewarding the reader with evocative and associative resonances.” (Rexroth xix)
Rexroth saw no break between the unfolding energy of nature and the movement of human thought. In turn, the natural world and the mind are organic in Rexroth’s poems:
Waterfalls drop
Long musical ribbons from
The high rocks where temples perch.
(Rexroth 666)
While Rexroth can be understood as a student of Pound’s later ideogrammic method, he broke with Pound whose political views contradicted his own spiritual and political idealism. Rexroth became a conscientious objector during World War II. Sam Hamill observes that during the war years: “Rexroth worked in a hospital and personally provided sanctuary for Japanese Americans.” (Rexroth xxii) Rexroth’s leftist activism and his understanding of the poet’s role as a witness in the face of injustice lead him to declare his disaffiliation from the American capitalist state. His political opposition to what has come to be called “the military-industrial complex” and his early embrace of nature as the material place of spiritual life made him a natural teacher for the poets and writers who became associated with the “San Francisco literary renaissance” of the late 1950’s and the Viet Nam anti-war movement of the 1960’s. During those years Rexroth’s San Francisco apartment was a gathering place for young writers, including Gary Snyder, Allan Ginsburg, William Everson, and Lawrence Ferlenghetti among others.
The ardor of Rexroth’s poetry stands in stark contrast to the lack of feeling displayed by much of the academic verse of the period. Rexroth’s poetry is both erotic and nuanced, and his later poems demonstrate how emotional candor and lyric precision can be combined to produce poems of singular clarity. Rexroth’s development as a poet owes much to his translation work, principally his translations of the classical Chinese poet Tu Fu. Rexroth’s versions of Tu Fu, first published by New Directions, brought to readers an immediacy previously unseen in American poetry:
Field mice scurry,
Preparing their holes for winter.
Midnight, we cross an old battlefield.
The moonlight shines cold on white bones.
(Rexroth, Chinese 10)
In his translations of Tu fu the mind and the natural world reflect a unified cosmology, both with good and bad results:
Birds cry over the water.
War breeds its consequences.
It is useless to worry,
Wakeful while the long night goes.
(Rexroth, Chinese 23)
Rexroth’s versions of Tu Fu brought the sober clarity of Chinese philosophical tradition to American poetry. In that tradition nature mirrors the inner lives of humankind:
The processes of nature resemble the affairs of men.
I stand alone with ten thousand sorrows.
(Rexroth, Chinese 16)
Kenneth Rexroth’s mature poetry reflects the precision and openness of Tu Fu:
It is spring once more in the coast range
Warm, perfumed, under the Easter moon.
(Rexroth 655)
The influence of Chinese lyric poetry can be seen in Rexroth’s observations on the workings of nature:
The dawn of ten thousand
Dawns is afire in the sky.
The water flows in the earth.
(Rexroth 529)
In addition to lyric clarity, the poetry of Kenneth Rexroth is often keenly political. The poet’s anti-war views appear in much of his work:
On a Military Graveyard
Stranger, when you come to Washington
Tell them that we lie here
Obedient to their orders.
–after Simonides
(Rexroth 591)
I move the dial, I have heard it all,
Day after day—the terrible waiting,
The air raids, the military communiqués,
The between the lines whispering
Of quarreling politicians…
(Rexroth 224)
In addition to lyric poems Rexroth wrote narrative poetry, most notably, “The Dragon and the Unicorn” (1952) and “The Heart’s Garden, The Garden’s Heart” (1967). In the longer, narrative poems Rexroth demonstrates his wide reading both in western and eastern philosophy and science. Despite Rexroth’s imaginative and intellectual originality his work has been often overlooked in the years following his death in 1982. Sam Hamill writes that Rexroth’s passing “went almost unnoticed by the literary establishment.” (Rexroth xxxv) It is possible that Kenneth Rexroth’s long antipathy to academic verse and his vocal disdain for the commercial media and publishing houses may have contributed to this unfortunate critical neglect. The publication of The Collected Poems of Kenneth Rexroth in 2002 was widely heralded as an important literary occasion. Rexroth’s internationalism, originality, and his pacifism continue to mark his work as relevant in the literary world of the 21st century.
Works Cited
Rexroth, Kenneth. The Collected Poems of Kenneth Rexroth. Port Townsend, Washington : Copper Canyon Press, 2002.
Rexroth, Kenneth. One Hundred Poems From the Chinese. New York: New Directions, 1974
Selected Bibliography of works by Kenneth Rexroth:
Poetry
Rexroth, Kenneth. In Defense of the Earth. New York: New Directions, 1956.
Rexroth, Kenneth. Selected Poems. Ed. Bradford Morrow. New York: New Directions, 1984.
Rexroth, Kenneth. Sacramental Acts: The Love Poems of Kenneth Rexroth. Ed. Sam Hamill and
Laura Kleiner. Port Townsend: Copper Canyon Press, 1997.
Rexroth, Kenneth. The Complete Poems of Kenneth Rexroth. Ed. Sam Hamill and
Bradford Morrow. Port Townsend: Copper Canyon Press, 2003
.
Translations
Rexroth, Kenneth. One Hundred Poems from the Japanese. New York: New Directions, 1964.
Rexroth, Kenneth. One Hundred Poems from the Chinese. New York: New Directions, 1971.
Rexroth, Kenneth. One Hundred More Poems from the Japanese. New York: New Directions,
1976.
Prose
Rexroth, Kenneth. Bird in the Bush: Obvious Essays. New York: New Directions, 1959.
Rexroth, Kenneth. Classics Revisited. Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1968.
Rexroth, Kenneth. Communalism: from its Origins to the Twentieth Century. London: Owen, 1975.
Rexroth, Kenneth. An Autobiographical Novel. Weybridge: Whittet Books, 1977.
Rexroth, Kenneth. Kenneth Rexroth and James Laughlin: Selected Letters. Ed. Lee Bartlett. New York: W.W. Norton, 1991.
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In the category of “Unlikely Casting That Looks Like It Just Might Work”: James Franco as Allen Ginsberg in Howl.
As one who teaches a course on the San Francisco Literary Renaissance I was pleased to see Lance Mannion's post about the film "Howl".
The video below shows New Jersey Governor Christie telling a school teacher that she should quit her job if she doesn’t like the pay. Christie is one of the politicians and media-heads that I call “Reagan Babies”. His view of America is that the poor and the middle classes ought to get down on their knees and thank Jesus that there are rich people in the land who may, just may throw them a crumb or two if they feel so inclined. This is the wholly discredited nonsense of Reagan’s trickle down economics all over again but with an even more fervid and unapologetic disdain for anyone who is not rich. You stupid school teacher, nursing at the public trough, too dumb to have a private sector job with million dollar buyouts, what–you want our sympathy? I suppose next you’ll want some gruel? Be gone! You tire the king!
The following excerpted article comes to us from The Inclusion Daily Express. We were thrilled to learn of this development!
S.K.
(MSNBC)
July 28, 2010
INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION, OUT THERE– [Excerpt] An astronaut living in orbit has delivered the International Space Station’s first address to the deaf community.
NASA astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson recorded a six-minute video for deaf children to give them a glimpse of what life as an astronaut is like.
While American Sign Language (ASL) is the fourth most commonly used language in the United States, it had never before been used on the space station, NASA said in a statement.
In the video, Caldwell Dyson also discussed what inspired her, as a hearing person, to learn sign language.
Entire article:
Space station astronaut gives first sign language address
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38419000/ns/technology_and_science-space/
Related:
NASA Astronaut Sends First Signed Message from Orbit (NASA)
http://www.InclusionDaily.com/news/2010/red/0728f.htm
Video of First Sign Language Message from Space (Space.com)
http://www.InclusionDaily.com/news/2010/red/0728g.htm
The clip below is of Ronald Reagan who loved to collect jokes and anecdotes. What’s interesting is that as you listen to Reagan it’s easy to see that the man’s entire world view is reflected in the jokes–that is, the jokes contain all of Reagan’s ideas about the world. Bigotry works that way. A joke walks into a bar and spots a man…
We were very sad today to learn of the passing of John Callahan the cartoonist whose wickedly unsentimental depictions of political correctness and yes, of disability have so often made the steep paths of this world into places of dark amusement. While some found his work too dark (and surely we will attest that Callahan had no sentimentality whatsoever) many of us in the disability rights community often had ourselves a good, righteous, miniature shit hemorage while laughing at his cartoons. We all remember our favorites. I always liked the one depicting two heads protruding from hooples (those boxes on wheels that cripples have famously used for centuries). One head says to the other which is obviously visually impaired: “People like you are such an inspiration to me.” I’m posting his most famous cartoon below. It shows three cops on horseback in a desert. Before them stands an abandoned wheelchair. There’s no sight of its owner. The lead cop is saying: “Don’t worry, he won’t get far on foot.”
The poet Wallace Stevens famously remarked that the world is ugly and the people are sad. What we choose to do with this incontestable truth is one of the central questions of art. John Callahan resisted “the overcoming story”–that is, a narrative that glibly suggests we’re all made well simply by telling our stories of suffering. Callahan didn’t trust the Oprah or Disney models of narrative closure wherein suffering makes for emotional freedom. In all too many cases suffering is suffering and laughter won’t save you but it will confirm that you still have a brain in your head. Thank you Callahan. We’ll miss you brother.
S.K.
By Andrea Scarpino
Marquette, Michigan
The gaze. As my computer dictionary defines, a particular perspective taken to embody certain aspects of the relationship between observer and observed. The gaze has been on my mind the last few weeks as I reread What Becomes You by Aaron Raz Link and Hilda Raz. A book in part about the gaze, when the gender that one understands oneself to be isn’t the gender of the body, isn’t the body that others see. The observer—Aaron’s mother Hilda, his family, friends, strangers—saw a female body when they looked at him. The observed—Aaron, born Sarah—saw a man.
There are many ways that the gaze can betray us. That we can look upon another body and just not get it right. This is unsettling. After my father died, people told me again and again how sick he had been—that he had died after a long illness, that I must feel some relief. But I didn’t understand my father was dying until he was dead. There were signs everywhere that other people clearly saw—years of fighting pneumonia, a series of strokes and seizures, a tracheotomy, wheelchair, old age. I can’t say I didn’t know these things—I did—but when I looked at him, I saw my father as he had always been. Then, maybe—maybe—a man living with some profound disabilities. But living with are the key words here. Not dying.
There are limits to every system of inquiry, even the most progressive or radical, even the ones that try to be the most inclusive. That’s a lesson I learned from feminism and disability studies—the male gaze or the gaze of the medical profession or the gaze of society at large doesn’t necessarily tell me anything about myself, my body, my experience of the world. And my gaze doesn’t necessarily get anything right about those I observe.
I saw my father as living with; others saw him as dying. I don’t know how he understood his own health struggles—in all honesty, I didn’t ask, assumed I knew. Aaron saw himself as male; others labeled him female. They also didn’t ask, made assumptions. Until the moment when testosterone and surgery rendered him male to the gaze. Then they made other assumptions.
I don’t know what I’m getting at here. My mother is ill. I’m worried about my step-mother. In another 5 years, all of my parents (and I have many) will be in their 70s. I’m worried that my gaze is limiting, that I can’t see them as they need or want to be seen. Because I am their child, I’m afraid I have a fixed vantage point. I’m afraid I won’t ask the right questions, will make assumptions based on who they once were, based on my belief that disability is normal, that living with disabilities is just another kind of living. That I won’t understand what their changing bodies signify until it’s too late.
But maybe that’s just the nature of the gaze. It holds as much and as little as it can. It makes mistakes. Maybe the task before me isn’t to blame the gaze, to admonish my powers of perception, but to understand its limits. Because aren’t we all living with until we aren’t any longer? Aren’t our bodies always in flux, in change?
Poet and essayist Andrea Scarpino is a frequent contributor to POTB. She lives in Marquette, Michigan. You can visit her at: www.andreascarpino.com
The “fantods” refer to having a condition of extreme restlessness or nervousness. Huck Finn used to get the fantods and my Uncle Mert used to get them whenever clouds suddenly appeared on a summer’s afternoon. Perhaps you get them when you have to take an escalator or you see the drain at the bottom of the swimming pool. I get them whenever I hear Dick Cheney’s name.
A “furvert” is someone who is sexually aroused by furry things. One may fair surmise that a true furvert will succumb to the fantods should he or she be deprived of “Mr. Binky” but we are now out of our league and accordingly we are unprepared to make any additional statement at this time. We suspect that Donald Rumsfeld is a perfervid furvert who is susceptible to having the fantods when deprived of “Mr. Binky” but again we cannot prove the point and the entire matter may well be a state secret.
The finest instance of a fantoded furvert is of course the scene in “The Producers” in which Gene Wilder (as Leo Bloom) is momentarily deprived of his blue blanket by Zero Mostel (as Max Bialystock). See link:
http://www.evtv1.com/player.aspx?itemnum=1447
S.K.
Planet of the Blind 