If offered a crown, refuse.
Jun. 5th, 2005 08:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabotabbyIt comes to my attention that at least one of you who should have heard of Kenneth Rexroth hasn't heard of him. This situation must be corrected immediately. When I discovered his writing a few years ago it was one of those "why did no one ever tell me about this guy" moments. Here's the short article (because 'zine articles should be short) that I wrote about him for Ye Drunken Sailor.
This is also a cheesy way to not write a proper post and to GIP without really GIPing.
IF OFFERED A CROWN, REFUSE: The poetry of Kenneth Rexroth
“Lion
The lion is called the king
Of beasts. Nowadays there are
Almost as many lions
In cages as out of them.
If offered a crown, refuse.” -- A Bestiary
Revolutionary, mystic, essayist, poet, philosopher, and anarchist Kenneth Rexroth’s writings span generations of struggle. Born in Indiana in 1905, Rexroth grew up in the era of jazz and bohemia. Having only five years of formal schooling, he spent most of his teenage years in Chicago, working as a reporter and helping to run a jazz coffeehouse. He hitchhiked across the country, worked as a cook, a cowboy, and a wrangler, and once worked his way to Paris and back. Both these adventures, and his experiences with the musicians, artists, writers, and radicals of the time, shaped his thoughts and his art, resulting in an enormous body of work ranging from poems and plays to social criticism and translations.
I discovered his poetry relatively recently, and casual inquiry led me to realize that many fellow anarchists have yet to hear of him. Rexroth’s work tells the story of anarchist activities from the 1930s to the 1970s. Many of the names that appear in his writing are instantly familiar to anyone with even a superficial understanding of anarchism: Goldman, Berkman, Sacco and Vanzetti. He was an active member of the IWW, participated in the anti-Vietnam War movement, wrote about the Spanish Civil War, the Kronstadt revolt, the betrayal of the Russian Revolution. To read his poetry is to read a lyrical history of class struggle, relevant not only for its politics but also for the pure beauty of the words.
Kenneth Rexroth died in 1982, but I’ve yet to find anything dated about his commentary. In “Codicil”, he writes:
“Most of the world’s poetry
Is artifice, construction.
No one reads it but scholars.
After a generation
It has grown so overcooked,
It cannot be digested.”
Without further ado, here is a sampling of poems neither overcooked, nor indigestible.
FROM THE PARIS COMMUNE TO
THE KRONSTADT REBELLION
Remember now there were others before this;
Now when the unwanted hours rise up,
And the sun rises red in unknown quarters,
And the constellations change places,
And cloudless thunder erases the furrows,
And moonlight stains and the stars grow hot.
Though the air is fetid, conscripted fathers,
With the black bloat of your dead faces;
Though men wander idling out of factories
Where turbine and hand are both freezing;
And the air clears at last above the chimneys;
Though mattresses curtain the windows;
And every hour hears the snarl of explosion;
Yet one shall rise up alone saying:
“I am one out of many, I have heard
Voices high in the air crying out commands;
Seen men’s bodies burst into torches;
Seen faun and maiden die in the night air raids;
Heard the watchwords exchanged in the alleys;
Felt hate speed the blood stream and fear curl the nerves.
I know too the last heavy maggot;
And know the trapped vertigo of impotence.
I have traveled prone and unwilling
In the dense processions through the shaken streets.
Shall we hang thus by taut navel strings
To this corrupt placenta till we’re flyblown;
Till our skulls are cracked by crow and kite
And our members become the business of ants,
Our teeth the collection of magpies?”
They shall rise up heroes, there will be many,
None will prevail against them at last.
They go saying each: “I am one of many”;
Their hands empty save for history.
They die at bridges, bridge gates, and drawbridges.
Remember now there were others before;
The sepulchres are full at ford and bridgehead.
There will be children with flowers there,
And lambs and golden-eyed lions there,
And people remembering in the future.
[1936]
PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR
AS A YOUNG ANARCHIST
1917-18-19,
While things were going on in Europe,
Our most used term of scorn or abuse
Was “bushwa.” We employed it correctly,
But we thought it was French for “bullshit.”
I lived in Toledo, Ohio,
On Delaware Avenue, the line
Between the rich and poor neighborhoods.
We played in the jungles by Ten Mile Creek,
And along the golf course in Ottawa Park.
There were two classes of kids, and they
Had nothing in common: the rich kids
Who worked as caddies, and the poor kids
Who snitched golf balls. I belonged to the
Saving group of exceptionalists
Who, after dark, and on rainy days,
Stole out and shat in the golf holes.
[1956]
More Rexroth, via the Bureau of Public Secrets.
*
Completely unrelated...
Toronto/York folks: You know that sculpture at York U. that looks like two giant, drippy penises? Does anyone have a picture of it?
This is also a cheesy way to not write a proper post and to GIP without really GIPing.
IF OFFERED A CROWN, REFUSE: The poetry of Kenneth Rexroth
“Lion
The lion is called the king
Of beasts. Nowadays there are
Almost as many lions
In cages as out of them.
If offered a crown, refuse.” -- A Bestiary
Revolutionary, mystic, essayist, poet, philosopher, and anarchist Kenneth Rexroth’s writings span generations of struggle. Born in Indiana in 1905, Rexroth grew up in the era of jazz and bohemia. Having only five years of formal schooling, he spent most of his teenage years in Chicago, working as a reporter and helping to run a jazz coffeehouse. He hitchhiked across the country, worked as a cook, a cowboy, and a wrangler, and once worked his way to Paris and back. Both these adventures, and his experiences with the musicians, artists, writers, and radicals of the time, shaped his thoughts and his art, resulting in an enormous body of work ranging from poems and plays to social criticism and translations.
I discovered his poetry relatively recently, and casual inquiry led me to realize that many fellow anarchists have yet to hear of him. Rexroth’s work tells the story of anarchist activities from the 1930s to the 1970s. Many of the names that appear in his writing are instantly familiar to anyone with even a superficial understanding of anarchism: Goldman, Berkman, Sacco and Vanzetti. He was an active member of the IWW, participated in the anti-Vietnam War movement, wrote about the Spanish Civil War, the Kronstadt revolt, the betrayal of the Russian Revolution. To read his poetry is to read a lyrical history of class struggle, relevant not only for its politics but also for the pure beauty of the words.
Kenneth Rexroth died in 1982, but I’ve yet to find anything dated about his commentary. In “Codicil”, he writes:
“Most of the world’s poetry
Is artifice, construction.
No one reads it but scholars.
After a generation
It has grown so overcooked,
It cannot be digested.”
Without further ado, here is a sampling of poems neither overcooked, nor indigestible.
FROM THE PARIS COMMUNE TO
THE KRONSTADT REBELLION
Remember now there were others before this;
Now when the unwanted hours rise up,
And the sun rises red in unknown quarters,
And the constellations change places,
And cloudless thunder erases the furrows,
And moonlight stains and the stars grow hot.
Though the air is fetid, conscripted fathers,
With the black bloat of your dead faces;
Though men wander idling out of factories
Where turbine and hand are both freezing;
And the air clears at last above the chimneys;
Though mattresses curtain the windows;
And every hour hears the snarl of explosion;
Yet one shall rise up alone saying:
“I am one out of many, I have heard
Voices high in the air crying out commands;
Seen men’s bodies burst into torches;
Seen faun and maiden die in the night air raids;
Heard the watchwords exchanged in the alleys;
Felt hate speed the blood stream and fear curl the nerves.
I know too the last heavy maggot;
And know the trapped vertigo of impotence.
I have traveled prone and unwilling
In the dense processions through the shaken streets.
Shall we hang thus by taut navel strings
To this corrupt placenta till we’re flyblown;
Till our skulls are cracked by crow and kite
And our members become the business of ants,
Our teeth the collection of magpies?”
They shall rise up heroes, there will be many,
None will prevail against them at last.
They go saying each: “I am one of many”;
Their hands empty save for history.
They die at bridges, bridge gates, and drawbridges.
Remember now there were others before;
The sepulchres are full at ford and bridgehead.
There will be children with flowers there,
And lambs and golden-eyed lions there,
And people remembering in the future.
[1936]
PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR
AS A YOUNG ANARCHIST
1917-18-19,
While things were going on in Europe,
Our most used term of scorn or abuse
Was “bushwa.” We employed it correctly,
But we thought it was French for “bullshit.”
I lived in Toledo, Ohio,
On Delaware Avenue, the line
Between the rich and poor neighborhoods.
We played in the jungles by Ten Mile Creek,
And along the golf course in Ottawa Park.
There were two classes of kids, and they
Had nothing in common: the rich kids
Who worked as caddies, and the poor kids
Who snitched golf balls. I belonged to the
Saving group of exceptionalists
Who, after dark, and on rainy days,
Stole out and shat in the golf holes.
[1956]
More Rexroth, via the Bureau of Public Secrets.
*
Completely unrelated...
Toronto/York folks: You know that sculpture at York U. that looks like two giant, drippy penises? Does anyone have a picture of it?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-06-06 01:02 am (UTC)GIP? I always thought the idiom was a slur against gypsies and spelled accordingly - as in the verb "to jew".
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Date: 2005-06-06 02:53 am (UTC)I'm being restrained about my shiny new icons. Mostly.
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Date: 2005-06-06 02:56 am (UTC)... and get back to work, you.
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Date: 2005-06-06 01:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-06 01:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-06 01:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-06 01:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-16 06:49 am (UTC)