Overview
This volume brings together all of Kenneth Rexroth’s shorter poems from
1920 to the present, including a group of new poems written since the
publication of Natural Numbers, drawn from seven earlier books.
Among the American poets of the generation that came to prominence in
the Forties, Kenneth Rexroth has been notable both for the independence
of his personal voice and for his accessibility to the tradition of
international avant-garde literature. He began writing and publishing in
magazines at fifteen. His earliest work was personal and concrete, much
like that of the Imagists. In his twenties he wrote in the
disassociative style––sometimes called "literary cubism "––developed by
Mallarmé, Apollinaire, and Reverdy. This was not free association, but
the conscious disassociation and recombination of the elements of the
poem to achieve the highest possible level of significance. With his
later books Rexroth moved back to a direct and classically simple form
of personal statement. In this period he wrote the great nature poems,
the love poems, and the contemplative lyrics that have established his
reputation as one of the most important American poets.
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