What do you think?
Rate this book
The Complete Poems
The Complete Poems of Kenneth Rexroth assembles all of his published longer and shorter poems, and includes a never-before-published selection of his earliest work. Rexroth’s poems of nature and protest are remarkable for their erudition and biting social and political commentary; his love poems justly celebrated for their eroticism and depth of feeling.
The cloth edition was one of the most widely reviewed poetry titles in 2003:
“Scholars and critics who endeavor to discuss mid-20th century American poetry responsibly ignore Rexroth at their peril.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review, cover feature and selected as a Book of the Year
“Rexroth is probably best known as the ‘Father of the Beat Generation.’ These poems reveal that great beauty lies beyond that cliché.”—NPR’s All Things Considered
“Rexroth’s prodigious breadth of learning, his hungry attention to the natural world, his contempt for warmongering and his profound, occasionally overlapping love of women are all on flourishing display.”—The San Francisco Chronicle
“Rexroth never mistook his poetry for a product, and he could present ideas and images in an urgent, memorable and eloquent way.”—The Nation
“Rexroth is one of the most readable and rewarding 20th-century American poets.”—Booklist
Kenneth Rexroth (1905–1982) was one of the world’s great literary minds. In addition to being a poet, translator, essayist and teacher, he helped found the San Francisco Poetry Center and influenced generations of readers with his Classics Revisited series.
The cloth edition was one of the most widely reviewed poetry titles in 2003:
“Scholars and critics who endeavor to discuss mid-20th century American poetry responsibly ignore Rexroth at their peril.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review, cover feature and selected as a Book of the Year
“Rexroth is probably best known as the ‘Father of the Beat Generation.’ These poems reveal that great beauty lies beyond that cliché.”—NPR’s All Things Considered
“Rexroth’s prodigious breadth of learning, his hungry attention to the natural world, his contempt for warmongering and his profound, occasionally overlapping love of women are all on flourishing display.”—The San Francisco Chronicle
“Rexroth never mistook his poetry for a product, and he could present ideas and images in an urgent, memorable and eloquent way.”—The Nation
“Rexroth is one of the most readable and rewarding 20th-century American poets.”—Booklist
Kenneth Rexroth (1905–1982) was one of the world’s great literary minds. In addition to being a poet, translator, essayist and teacher, he helped found the San Francisco Poetry Center and influenced generations of readers with his Classics Revisited series.
- GenresPoetry
900 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2003
20 people are currently reading
388 people want to read
About the author
Kenneth Rexroth
203 books109 followersKenneth Rexroth was an American poet, translator, and critical essayist.
He is regarded as a central figure in the San Francisco Renaissance, and paved the groundwork for the movement. Although he did not consider himself to be a Beat poet, and disliked the association, he was dubbed the "Father of the Beats" by Time magazine.
Largely self-educated, Rexroth learned several languages and translated poems from Chinese, French, Spanish, and Japanese. He was among the first poets in the United States to explore traditional Japanese poetic themes and forms.
Rexroth died in Santa Barbara, California, on June 6, 1982. He had spent his final years translating Japanese and Chinese women poets, as well as promoting the work of female poets in America and overseas.
He is regarded as a central figure in the San Francisco Renaissance, and paved the groundwork for the movement. Although he did not consider himself to be a Beat poet, and disliked the association, he was dubbed the "Father of the Beats" by Time magazine.
Largely self-educated, Rexroth learned several languages and translated poems from Chinese, French, Spanish, and Japanese. He was among the first poets in the United States to explore traditional Japanese poetic themes and forms.
Rexroth died in Santa Barbara, California, on June 6, 1982. He had spent his final years translating Japanese and Chinese women poets, as well as promoting the work of female poets in America and overseas.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
August 13, 2017
Soup to nuts, with some excellent courses.
As the title indicates this is the complete collection of all Kenneth Rexroth's poems, and it's a doorstop, over 700 pages long, minus notes, introduction, and index. It stretches from the mid-1920s, when Rexroth had made his way to San Francisco, and was just in entering his own twenties--after a life that had already taken him through the Midwest, the mountain region, Mexico, dedicated to a revolutionary politics--to the 1970s, a full half century of work.
The early poems are clearly juvenalia, and are really only for the completist or those interested in the fine details of American culture in the 1920s. Rexroth was clearly influenced by surrealism and its associates, but he lacked the imagination that his later friend Philip Lamantia would bring to the movement when Lamantia was only a callow youth of 16. Rexroth continues to experiment through the 1930s, and some of these poems are affecting but none are particularly memorable.
It is only in the 1940s that he really comes into his own, as he finds his voice. Supposedly, Rexroth wanted the poet William Everson (later Brother Antonius) to embody the autochthonous intelligence, and was upset when Everson showed to much learning. Reading these, it seems that Rexroth may have seen a similar struggle in himself: between the grounded intelligence and the intellectual.
The poems flips back and forth between poems that insist on immanence and closely observe the natural world--there's a bit of Robinson Jeffers in him, though Rexroth is less moved by the jagged edge of the continent and ocean, more by the soft hills of the Bay Area and its flora and fauna. Other poems, though, are erudite, almost to a fault, with references from all sorts of mythologies and ancient philosophies and religions. (In addition to regularly reading the Encyclopedia Britannica, straight through like a novel, he read novels and philosophy and taught himself a number of languages.) The longer poems go back and forth between the two modes within the same poem, alternating observation with reflection.
Rexroth's style was relaxed, the lines--as he said--about seven syllables long, with no rhyming scheme. They scan but, obviously, follow no specific meter. That's part of his quest to be grounded, I think. One can also see the migration of poetry to popular music--a transit that occurred during his lifetime, and one which he helped to initiate: several of his poems, he notes, are meant to be read to certain pieces of music. In later years, Rexroth would be associated with the Beats, who continued these experiments.
The second of his really long pieces--after The Phoenix and the Tortoise (which is the best)--called The Dragon and the Unicorn has him somewhat curdled. He was spending time in Europe, remarking on what he saw there, and also endlessly bitching about the world, and the things he didn't like: anti-Semitism (which he said was stupid because the Jews had already hurt themselves by being too materialistic!), modern women, collectivisms of any kind. It doesn't show him at his best.
His work was more sporadic through the 1950s and 1960s, before reaching a new place int he 1970s. He had long been interested in Asian poetry, especially Chinese--inspired by Ezra Pound, though they came to hate each other--and there's a lapidary quality to these later poems--some of which were translations.
Rexroth never really liked being called The Father of the Beats, though in many ways he was--he didn't really like being associated with any kind of movement. (He continually fetishized community over collectives, which made him a fitting symbol for later conservative cultural commentators, since he never went for communism, though they had to scrape away much of his leftism to get at their preferred libertarianism.) He had mystical notions of sex--though he also despised mysticism--and love, and many of these poems deal with the women in his life.
Because that's the other thing: he had numerous, often overlapping affairs, and for all the ways he idealized sex and love, he was also a member in good standing of what David Foster Wallace called the mid-century's Great Male Narcissists. Women could also be objects to him, symbols. It becomes especially clear when reading this book in one lump, as I have these past eight months, and seeing similar ideas constantly reappear.
In the end, though, the various foibles, the ups-and-downs of quality do not detract much from the book. What's good here is really good, and Rexroth's influence was immense on the poets who followed him--he's severely under-recognized. The introductory matter makes something of a case for him, but not particularly well nor comprehensively. It's a pity not to have a better menu.
But if you're willing to eat slowly, and digest slowly, the book will reward you many times over.
As the title indicates this is the complete collection of all Kenneth Rexroth's poems, and it's a doorstop, over 700 pages long, minus notes, introduction, and index. It stretches from the mid-1920s, when Rexroth had made his way to San Francisco, and was just in entering his own twenties--after a life that had already taken him through the Midwest, the mountain region, Mexico, dedicated to a revolutionary politics--to the 1970s, a full half century of work.
The early poems are clearly juvenalia, and are really only for the completist or those interested in the fine details of American culture in the 1920s. Rexroth was clearly influenced by surrealism and its associates, but he lacked the imagination that his later friend Philip Lamantia would bring to the movement when Lamantia was only a callow youth of 16. Rexroth continues to experiment through the 1930s, and some of these poems are affecting but none are particularly memorable.
It is only in the 1940s that he really comes into his own, as he finds his voice. Supposedly, Rexroth wanted the poet William Everson (later Brother Antonius) to embody the autochthonous intelligence, and was upset when Everson showed to much learning. Reading these, it seems that Rexroth may have seen a similar struggle in himself: between the grounded intelligence and the intellectual.
The poems flips back and forth between poems that insist on immanence and closely observe the natural world--there's a bit of Robinson Jeffers in him, though Rexroth is less moved by the jagged edge of the continent and ocean, more by the soft hills of the Bay Area and its flora and fauna. Other poems, though, are erudite, almost to a fault, with references from all sorts of mythologies and ancient philosophies and religions. (In addition to regularly reading the Encyclopedia Britannica, straight through like a novel, he read novels and philosophy and taught himself a number of languages.) The longer poems go back and forth between the two modes within the same poem, alternating observation with reflection.
Rexroth's style was relaxed, the lines--as he said--about seven syllables long, with no rhyming scheme. They scan but, obviously, follow no specific meter. That's part of his quest to be grounded, I think. One can also see the migration of poetry to popular music--a transit that occurred during his lifetime, and one which he helped to initiate: several of his poems, he notes, are meant to be read to certain pieces of music. In later years, Rexroth would be associated with the Beats, who continued these experiments.
The second of his really long pieces--after The Phoenix and the Tortoise (which is the best)--called The Dragon and the Unicorn has him somewhat curdled. He was spending time in Europe, remarking on what he saw there, and also endlessly bitching about the world, and the things he didn't like: anti-Semitism (which he said was stupid because the Jews had already hurt themselves by being too materialistic!), modern women, collectivisms of any kind. It doesn't show him at his best.
His work was more sporadic through the 1950s and 1960s, before reaching a new place int he 1970s. He had long been interested in Asian poetry, especially Chinese--inspired by Ezra Pound, though they came to hate each other--and there's a lapidary quality to these later poems--some of which were translations.
Rexroth never really liked being called The Father of the Beats, though in many ways he was--he didn't really like being associated with any kind of movement. (He continually fetishized community over collectives, which made him a fitting symbol for later conservative cultural commentators, since he never went for communism, though they had to scrape away much of his leftism to get at their preferred libertarianism.) He had mystical notions of sex--though he also despised mysticism--and love, and many of these poems deal with the women in his life.
Because that's the other thing: he had numerous, often overlapping affairs, and for all the ways he idealized sex and love, he was also a member in good standing of what David Foster Wallace called the mid-century's Great Male Narcissists. Women could also be objects to him, symbols. It becomes especially clear when reading this book in one lump, as I have these past eight months, and seeing similar ideas constantly reappear.
In the end, though, the various foibles, the ups-and-downs of quality do not detract much from the book. What's good here is really good, and Rexroth's influence was immense on the poets who followed him--he's severely under-recognized. The introductory matter makes something of a case for him, but not particularly well nor comprehensively. It's a pity not to have a better menu.
But if you're willing to eat slowly, and digest slowly, the book will reward you many times over.
December 14, 2025
An incredibly disciplined example of free verse poetry, it is absolutely worth first experiencing Rexroth in the context of a volume of his complete poems. This collection deserves a place in any personal library.
July 2, 2021
Favorite Poems:
“Homer in Basic”
“Proust’s Madeleine”
“The Wheel Revolves”
The Love Poems of Marichiko”
“Homer in Basic”
“Proust’s Madeleine”
“The Wheel Revolves”
The Love Poems of Marichiko”
September 2, 2024
Did I read this entire heavyweight book? No. I stuck to the little lyrics, many of which are quite fine. A 100 page selection would be much better.
February 17, 2015
An anarchist and curmudgeon poet, could you ask for anything more? Not me, that's for sure. He was a Poet of All Trades, from selling anarchist newspapers at City Lights Bookstore to translating Chinese and Japanese poetry his talent shines through. He was definitely a member of the San Francisco renaissance. He was a conscientious objector during World War II and spent his time working with Japanese-Americans held in camps. He was definitely one of the original starters of the "beat generation" however as time passed he rejected the movement. In his essay, "Disengagement: The Art of the Beat Generation" he states: "Anyway, as an old war horse of the revolution of the word, things have never looked better from where I sit. The avant-garde has not only not ceased to exist. It’s jumping all over the place. Something’s happening, man." That pretty much sums up his disillusionment of the movement.
I admit that I did not read it from the front to back, rather I chose the poems that fit my mood of the day. Since I have a proclivity to be a sentimentalist I am drawn to the poems that reinforce that.
I admit that I did not read it from the front to back, rather I chose the poems that fit my mood of the day. Since I have a proclivity to be a sentimentalist I am drawn to the poems that reinforce that.
June 8, 2009
Father of the San Fransisco Renaissance, he helped usher in the Beat Generation. He differs in his literary career as a polymath and translator of poems. He also did not sit well with the Occidental approach to Buddhism. His poems are enlightened struggles with modern life and disappearing relationships with others and the environment.
March 8, 2009
Maybe my favorite current poet (although I haven't read much poetry lately). He was as talented as any poet writing in the last half-century.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews