Collected Shorter Poems

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.