Honest Advice Wanted: Allen Ginsberg and Kenneth Rexroth
An in-depth look at the very difficult relationship between two major poets.
I wrote the following essay for Beatdom #26, but as that issue of the journal looks to be extremely long already, and as this essay is around 12,000 words, I think it’s best to publish it here on Substack instead. Beatdom #26 will be the Allen Ginsberg centennial edition and will be published on June 3 (his 100th birthday). We just received the cover, which you can see below, and have made the pre-order link for the journal:
Much has already been written about Kenneth Rexroth and the Beat Generation, including an essay I put together for Beatdom #24. However, these accounts have tended to look at his relationship with the writers as a group and particularly his role as an elder who initially supported them but later turned against them. They have understandably focused on the animosity between Rexroth and Jack Kerouac, which is certainly the most salacious part of the story. (Who doesn’t enjoy reading about an old-fashioned literary feud?) Rexroth’s role in the 6 Gallery reading has also been documented, as has his defence of “Howl” in 1957. I do not want to repeat too much and so in this essay I will aim to rely heavily on unpublished and largely uncited documents to look at the whole arc of the “friendship” (if indeed that is an appropriate term for the rather difficult relationship) between Rexroth and Allen Ginsberg. I will aim to show their drastically changed fortunes and demonstrate how the two men’s attitudes towards each other evolved over a period of 30 years from their first encounters to Rexroth’s death.
“Dear Mr Rexroth”: Letters from a young poet
It is unclear to what extent Ginsberg was aware of Rexroth in the 1940s because he does not seem to have mentioned him (at least in any surviving documents), but Rexroth was a poet of modest reputation and given Ginsberg’s extensive reading of contemporary poetry, it is certainly possible that he had heard of him. Rexroth had grown up in Chicago but moved to the West Coast and settled in San Francisco in 1927, the year after Ginsberg was born. He quickly set himself up as one of the best-known literary figures in the area and sometimes published in national publications, such as The New Republic and Partisan Review, with books published by MacMillan and New Directions. He also wrote translations of Japanese poems included in notable anthologies. Perhaps Ginsberg or his father Louis had read his work but no hard evidence can be found.
It is possible, however, that Rexroth may have known about Ginsberg before the younger poet knew of him, as suggested by the first line of the first letter between them. This was written on Ginsberg’s 26th birthday in 1952:
Dear Mr Rexroth,
Philip Lamantia told me he had spoken of me to you and suggested that I write you.[i]
This two-page, handwritten letter was an introduction from a poet at the start of his career to an established one. Ginsberg had been told that Rexroth read manuscripts for New Directions and was generally the man to impress for anyone aiming to be published on the West Coast. Although Ginsberg at the time was still in New Jersey, he was beginning to look further afield and may have been aware that the West Coast was arising as an alternative to the East Coast literary establishment. In this letter, he asked permission to send along a book of poems for which William Carlos Williams had written an introduction, and which was currently under consideration at Random House, but said “I doubt they’ll publish it.”[1] The main objective of this letter was seemingly to see if Rexroth would consider “for publication a group of poems (not prose poems) in the N.D. annual, and also for an issue of Perspective.”[2] He also asked about local magazines that accepted poetry submissions and recommended the work of Jaime De Angulo on behalf of A.A. Wyn, a publisher that Ginsberg had some association with through Carl Solomon. He seemed keen to drop names Rexroth would know (Williams, Lamantia, Lionel Trilling, and Charles Henri Ford), most likely as a means of ensuring a positive response, which is indeed what he received.
Rexroth wrote back on July 12, the delay seemingly due to his being on holiday in Sequoia National Park. It was, in Ginsberg’s words, a “good hearted letter.” Rexroth corrected a number of assumptions Ginsberg had made but asked him to send along his book. He informed Ginsberg that he had known De Angulo (who died in 1950) for 25 years and suggested sending poetry to Richard Wirtz Emerson of Golden Goose Press.[3] In typical fashion, Rexroth criticised a number of people and publications in this short, handwritten letter, mentioning “the Ku Klux Kenyon.” This refers of course to The Kenyon Review, an academic publication that in Rexroth’s eyes stood for the establishment. It published the likes of Randell Jarrell, whom Rexroth considered “a fascist.”[ii]
It is wonderful that this letter has survived and can be found but sadly it is one of only three from the thirty years of their friendship that I have been able to uncover. Rexroth’s archives contain many of Ginsberg’s, all of which are unpublished, but for whatever reason Ginsberg failed to save the ones Rexroth had sent him except for three quite important ones. As we shall see, though, their correspondence could be rather one-sided.
Ginsberg wrote back on August 10, sending his book but oddly choosing to criticise it. He noted that his work was “too negative, hung up, and nowhere, full of self pity.” He went on to admit, “I doubt its value because of that.” Still, he believed the work contained value and asked for an “honest appraisal.” He again reminded Rexroth of De Angulo’s forthcoming book from A.A. Wyn, which Ginsberg interestingly described as “courtesy of young subterranean Teahead’s activities.” He seems to be referring to himself and his role as literary agent or advisor to Solomon. Later in life, Ginsberg would recall helping Solomon get the book into print. It is interesting to see this fairly early usage of “subterranean” and “teahead,” both of which entered the Beat lexicon around this time.
The third letter Ginsberg sent in 1952 was undated but was possibly sent in October or November. He was again rather self-deprecating. He acknowledged that Williams’ blessing was flattering but also a sort of “kiss of death” for a young poet and then talked about his own poetic style—or, more specifically, his lack of style. He explained he used to write “stanzaic rymed (sic) poems” but now “I can’t tell what the best method is, what you have is raw observations without any system but their randomness […] I don’t count this real writing.” He discussed his developing thoughts on poetics and hinted at an interest in a literary concept that would later define much Beat poetry, saying, “I have never developed accentual prowess to the splendor of jazz freedom.”
After these first three letters, it is perhaps worth dwelling for a moment on the relationship between these poets. At this point, Ginsberg had only a handful of publications in minor outlets and no real reputation except that he had been endorsed by Williams and had the ear of a few moderately renowned figures, such as his old professors at Columbia. Rexroth, on the other hand, was highly regarded by some and had contacts among the highest levels of the nation’s literati (although he disliked the establishment and deliberately sought a regional alternative). Ginsberg was partially interested in making Rexroth’s acquaintance as a means of getting his poems in print but it seems quite obvious that he was more interested in soliciting advice and feedback, as well as using Rexroth as a sounding board. He did this of course with his close friends but the letters to Rexroth are different in that they are more self-critical and deferential, and discuss more the technical side of poetry than the thematic.
“Dear Kenneth”: First meetings and a hint of duplicity
Ginsberg and Rexroth lost contact after this brief period in 1952 and only resumed communication in 1954, when Ginsberg arrived in California. He had travelled there via a long trip through Cuba and Mexico, during which he grew tremendously as a person and poet. Initially, he stayed in San Jose with Neal and Carolyn Cassady, venturing into San Francisco on Mondays. An undated letter from that summer explained that he had looked Rexroth up in a phonebook but no one had answered when he called, so he requested that they meet in person. This is hardly unusual, for during his life Ginsberg always sought to meet the best-known poets in each place he visited. However, it is perhaps telling that Ginsberg said, “I thought you had a bookstore and was going to visit you there, but couldn’t find the number.” Had he perhaps confused Rexroth with Lawrence Ferlinghetti? City Lights had opened in 1953 and Ginsberg would soon meet the proprietor but for now he was unfamiliar with the San Francisco scene. This is possible given evidence in Ginsberg’s letters that shows he knew little about Rexroth and misunderstood his connection to various publications and presses. The two men were occasionally mentioned together in publications as well, normally with Ferlinghetti (at the time “Ferling”) reviewing Rexroth’s books.
We can be a little more specific in our dating by referring to a July 10 letter to Louis Ginsberg from the book, Family Business. Here, Ginsberg mentions his attempt at visiting Rexroth, who was out of town, and says that Rexroth had sent him a letter (which sadly seems not to have been saved) giving contact information for Ruth Witt-Diamant. However, Ginsberg was more interested in meeting “the big cheese”[iii] who was “the only real brain around here.”[iv]
The first meeting between Ginsberg and Rexroth took place at some point before August 14, and they spent an evening together, talking until 11pm, at which point Rexroth drove Ginsberg to the train station for his trip back to San Jose.[v] He explained to his brother:
He used to know or knew of Louis. A real learned man, translates Chink, Jap, Greek, Latin, French and is an editor at New Directions. Also an anarchist self-professed with a whole line of dreary self pitying ARTIST hangups. I’m no one to talk but he makes a profession out of it which is really embarrassing to listen to. However he knows a lot about literature when his taste is not corrupted by this kind of hangup.[vi]
This letter gives the impression that Ginsberg was slightly disappointed upon meeting Rexroth but in fact he had possessed an awareness of the older poet’s apparent limitations since not long after their first letters were exchanged. Back in 1952, Ginsberg wrote to Neal Casasdy about his intention to use Rexroth as a means of getting published and remarked, “He’s an old guy, not really great as writer, too hung up on booklearning, but he does dig all the young subterranean cats like Lamantia.”[vii]
Indeed, in his private correspondence with others, Ginsberg could be rather insulting about Rexroth. One tends to think of him as brutally honest but he seems to have been quite two-faced, for at the same time he solicited advice and acted deferential, he was telling others that Rexroth was something of an intellectual lightweight and that he lacked real poetic talent. These letters suggest that Ginsberg was simply using Rexroth as a conduit to reach publishers and editors of real value but that he had little respect for the man as a poet or intellectual.
We get the same feeling looking at the letters between Ginsberg and Kerouac from this period, which at times sound almost like conversations between two men plotting to use an elderly relative for their personal advantage. Ginsberg wrote Kerouac in August to say that they’d met and whilst he was in some ways flattering about Rexroth, he was clearly pitching him as a prospective means of getting published rather than as a great poet to learn from. He said Rexroth was
a very easy guy ex hip about forty-five, speaks Greek, and Latin, Chink, Jap, etc. and is an anarchist and bleeding heart art martyr […] he likes to make believe he’s tough and don’t give shit and in a revolution against society and he does add to its small literature in a nice way. I mean he ain’t Pound but one of the older disciples though he’s independent etc. etc. all this crap.[viii]
We can see then that Ginsberg first met Rexroth in late July or early August 1954 (likely the latter) and that he had mixed feelings about him. Before meeting him, he was confused about his various roles vis-à-vis various publishers and magazines, and evidently thought he ran a bookshop. He did not think much of him as a poet but nonetheless respected his position and experience.
Ginsberg moved to San Francisco pretty soon after these letters, for he was kicked out of the Cassadys’ home after having sex with Neal. He ended up in North Beach, where he met Ferlinghetti and began to socialise among the city’s hipsters. In various bars, coffeeshops, cafeterias, art galleries, and bookstores, he would come to know the vast web of bohemians that were rapidly becoming the country’s countercultural centre, but Rexroth still sat at the top of the table. Not everyone liked him, but almost everyone respected his position. His Friday-night literary salon was the meeting point for intellectuals and artists, and his radio show was widely enjoyed—even if in both cases people enjoyed his rants and exaggerated boasting more than his actual literary and intellectual abilities. He called himself the “de facto cultural minister of San Francisco”[ix] and mentored most of the best young poets in the city. Robert Duncan—arguably the second poet in San Francisco—once said, “We were all brought up on Daddy Rexroth’s reading list,”[x] a statement that aligns with ones made by countless others.
The people he met surely helped reinforce Ginsberg’s opinion of Rexroth and indeed his letters suggest that he continued to like and respect the elder poet but recognised his weaknesses. Many of these, particularly the ones sent to Kerouac, depict Ginsberg almost frantically trying to convince Rexroth of the genius of his close friends, Kerouac and Burroughs. Whether Rexroth changed his opinion, Ginsberg deluded himself, or Ginsberg simply wanted to please Kerouac, we can see contradictions in his accounts. Sometimes he says Rexroth was really impressed by the manuscripts he showed him but other times it is clear Rexroth was not convinced of their literary brilliance. In one telling line, after Kerouac felt he had a shot at placing On the Road with Malcolm Cowley, Ginsberg responded: “Yes, Rexroth was only an idea just in case nothing else was happening, Cowley much better.”[xi]
There aren’t many letters between Ginsberg and Rexroth from the period when Ginsberg lived in San Francisco because he could simply speak to him in person or by phone, but one short note sent in December, sent during a brief trip back to the East Coast, shows that they were now on first-name terms and very familiar with each other’s personal lives and histories. It begins “Dear Kenneth” and indicates that they were by now friends.
Another undated letter from this period, but probably written in early 1955, suggests that in spite of his comments to others Ginsberg valued Rexroth’s input and sought his approval. Here, he was sending along recently written work and asking advice rather than publication prospects. In fact, the letter depicts a young poet eager for approval and hoping to impress the older one by showing progress. Alas, it is impossible to date the letter or determine exactly which poem he sent.[4]
Most importantly, Ginsberg reached out to Rexroth in June 1955 to share an extremely important poem: “Dream Record: June 8, 1955.” In fact, he talked about it several times in later years, often quoting Rexroth (inaccurately) from memory. Fortunately, both Ginsberg’s letter and Rexroth’s reply could be found, meaning we do not have to rely on his later versions.
Ginsberg sent the poem alongside a two-page, typed letter on June 15. It contained many notes and thoughts about this work and these seem to have been developed from notes in his journal, for they are very similar to what he scribbled in an undated notebook entry. Ginsberg said years later that Rexroth had not liked the poem, calling it “stilted & somewhat academic,”[xii] but in fact Rexroth’s short response began: “That’s a good poem.” He did, however, have some criticism and advice, saying “the lack of significant detail in the list of people robs it of a pathos it might have had.” Perhaps Ginsberg later remembered this amusing line: “Your letter is mostly nonsense—but if it stimulates you to write I guess it’s ok.” Rexroth then calls the poem “quite conventional” and said “I think it needs more of a personal rhythmic idiom.”
I have demonstrated already that Ginsberg’s work on “Dream Record” led directly to the writing of “Howl,” and I wonder whether Rexroth’s advice here had some influence, for the latter poem fixed the problem related to “the lack of significant detail in the list of people” and certainly possessed “a personal rhythmic idiom.” You can read about the process in this essay:
The fact that he sent this poem to Rexroth and explained his ideas in such detail goes to show that in spite of his negative remarks to others, by mid-1955 Ginsberg clearly viewed Rexroth as something of a mentor. Yet this became less true… Examining his later remarks and his letters from this point, one gets the feeling from his letters that although he did not entirely lose respect for Rexroth, he was less inclined to seek his opinions from this point on. Ginsberg could certainly take criticism—and clearly he sought and welcomed it—but Rexroth’s assessment was diametrically opposed to that of Kerouac and Burroughs, pushing Ginsberg into the idea that the older poet was limited in his vision and out of touch with modern poetry. At this point, Rexroth had recently dismissed some of Burroughs’ work and also Kerouac’s Doctor Sax. Maybe he just wasn’t that hip.[5]
Another letter from around this time, sent from Ginsberg to Kerouac, indicates that Rexroth was perhaps little more than a steppingstone for the Beat writers and that even in that capacity he had not worked out as well as they had hoped:
I’m not sure still that Rexroth is absolutely exhausted as a prospect. If you have an extra copy of On the Road or Subterraneans, have them or you send it to me, I’ll try him with those. Maybe it’s wasted effort maybe not.[xiii]
Anyone who knows Beat history, however, will know that Rexroth was just about to play a very important role…
“My only regret”: Rexroth introduces the Beat writers
Perhaps the best-known link between Rexroth and the Beats is the fact that he acted as the M.C. (or “introducer,”[xiv] in Ginsberg’s words) for the 6 Gallery Reading on October 7, 1955. Much has been written about this including in my own recent book, A Remarkable Collection of Angels, so I will only give a brief account here.
Arguably the story begins with Ginsberg meeting Rexroth, who in turn introduced him to Robert Duncan. It was through Duncan that Ginsberg first visited the 6 Gallery in January 1955, and he soon came to know at least two of the gallery’s founders—Wally Hedrick and John Allen Ryan. It was during a night with Ryan that Ginsberg awoke and made the notes that would become “Dream Record: June 8, 1955.” Around this same time (early summer), Hedrick asked Ginsberg to arrange a series of poetry readings at the 6, possibly inspired by Duncan’s performance of Faust Foutu in January. Ginsberg said no but after “Dream Record” led to “Howl” and he finally felt supreme confidence in a poem, he “changed [his] fucking mind”[xv] and decided to organise the series. This ended up being a single reading and the one that forever changed poetry in the Bay Area.
Although everyone involved later had a different memory of how the reading came to be organised, there is little disagreement over the fact that Ginsberg consulted Rexroth on who to invite and Rexroth immediately recommended Gary Snyder. It is incredible that Snyder and Ginsberg had not yet met, given their shared interests and the fact that they had both attended Rexroth’s salon on a number of occasions. Also, Snyder was at the time Rexroth’s primary protégé and surely would have been mentioned in conversation even if their salon attendances did not overlap. In any case, they finally did meet on September 9 and remained lifelong friends. Although he later angrily denied being “the father of the Beats,” Rexroth certainly helped expand the Beat Generation through this pivotal introduction, which subsequently led to the addition of Snyder’s friend, Philip Whalen. The literary movement that had begun around Columbia University a decade earlier now reached across the continent.
Rexroth’s name was used on the postcard that advertised the event and he helped spread word so that it was a capacity crowd on October 7. His presence—which came during a time of tremendous personal pain—also helped make it the great success that it was. He was a witty speaker and held the audience’s attention between poets. Several people recall him shedding tears and making extremely complimentary remarks about the poets that night. At the end, he famously told Ginsberg, “this poem will make you famous from bridge to bridge,”[xvi] but perhaps the greater compliment was this lesser-known pronouncement, which Rexroth made from the stage after Ginsberg had sat down: “My only regret is that I am too old to have been included in Allen’s poem.”[xvii] By all accounts, he recognised that it was a landmark occasion and that a new literary movement was underway. A letter Ginsberg sent his father a few months later indirectly quoted Rexroth as calling it “a semi major renaissance,” which predates the term “San Francisco Renaissance” by about a year.
Rexroth had already introduced Ginsberg to Ruth Witt-Diamant and had arranged for Gary Snyder to be given a reading at her Poetry Center, and it appears that he similarly helped Ginsberg, Whalen, and McClure get readings there in the following months, which allowed Ginsberg and the Beats the opportunity to build upon their success. Then, in March 1956, at a so-called “repeat performance” of the 6 Gallery event in Berkeley, he even read alongside the younger poets, replacing Philip Lamantia. In a major change from the 6 Gallery reading, Ginsberg introduced Rexroth, who read some of his own poems, and then when Rexroth introduced Ginsberg, he said, “he needs no introduction,”[xviii] showing just how much the young poet’s reputation had grown in just 5 months.
Everything on this tape sounds good-natured and indeed it seems Rexroth was still acting as a mentor towards the young poets, but that would soon change. In fact, despite the public display of friendliness and collaboration, there was already some animosity between Rexroth and the Beats, and it would quickly grow into a burning hatred. He had said at the 6 Gallery, “my only regret is that I am too old to have been included in Allen’s poem,” but pretty soon he would regret having had anything to do with the Beat poets.
“Evil parody”: Rexroth turns on the Beats
It was probably November 18, 1955, that Kerouac and Rexroth had their big fall-out.[6] It seems that Rexroth had enjoyed Kerouac’s writing before meeting him but then found him unimpressive in person. Kerouac was a shy man and got drunk to compensate, and when he was drunk he became boisterous and sometimes rude. Their first meeting, on September 23, did not go particularly well, and at the 6 Gallery Kerouac sat close to Rexroth and disturbed him with his enthusiastic cheering, but it was in November that Kerouac and the other young Beats really annoyed Rexroth.
To understand why this was such a disastrous meeting, it is perhaps worth briefly looking at Rexroth’s private life. He essentially had two wives—Marie, to whom he was married but separated, yet who lived across the road and was his spiritual rock; and Marthe, with whom he lived with and had two children, but had not yet married. As marital problems caused Marthe to move out, Marie decided to divorce him as a way of fixing the problem. Rexroth felt as though he’d lost two wives at once. He was emotionally devastated and this is the point at which these young, drunk poets entered his home and offended him. There are multiple accounts of what happened on November 18, but Ginsberg offended him by saying he was already a better poet than Rexroth and Kerouac did something that was even worse. Some say it was laughing too loudly; others say he was drunk and offensive. Rexroth once claimed Kerouac took out a needle and shot up heroin in front of his children, although that is highly unlikely. A close examination of all accounts suggests Kerouac was probably being too loud and Rexroth was worried that his children, who were sleeping in the next room, would be woken. In any case, Rexroth called Kerouac a “son of a bitch” and kicked him out, and Kerouac shouted insulting names in response.
Kerouac soon fell out with Ginsberg and hitchhiked back East to his mother, leaving the scene for several crucial months. He would never make up with Rexroth but Ginsberg apologised and they resumed their friendship even if now it was a little strained. Rexroth’s emotional distress worsened when Kerouac returned to California and became close with Robert Creeley, another young poet who befriended the Beats. Creeley began sleeping with Marthe and Rexroth believed that all the Beats were forcing her into orgies. He was often seen out on the street, crying and screaming. He threatened violence against Marthe and himself, and sometimes screamed murderously at Ginsberg, who calmly absorbed the rage and reasoned with him. Ginsberg had much experience dealing with the mentally unstable, but even he struggled to cope. In July 1956, he wrote:
Creeley and Martha [sic] are lovers. Kenneth has been flipping out—really so, talking extravagantly—even for so absurd a situation—too much to gossip about in such a short letter form. Anyway, threatening suicide, predicting hers, “He’s not going to make a Natalie[7] of my wife,” weeping, holding my hand (or anyone kind enuf to come up and talk it out with him). He’s unstable—but surely has reason to be—but he is unstable and strange. You would see. Great self pity—but also so extreme as to make me uncomfortable as if it were a madness and not some loveable frailty.[xix]
In spite of these difficulties, Ginsberg continued seeing Rexroth in person and writing letters to him. In August, he sent him a copy of another landmark poem, “Siesta in Xbalba” (dedicated to Karena Shields) from a Merchant Marine ship. His letters remained friendly and give no indication of hostility from Rexroth.
It is important to note here that during 1956, despite Rexroth’s emotional disintegration and the fractures between he and the Beat poets, he was still instrumental in their continuing rise to fame. It was over this period that he worked with his old friend Richard Eberhart to produce a New York Times article about the San Francisco poetry scene, and this article would promote the Beats more than the local poets. The article was Rexroth’s idea and there is some evidence to suggest he wrote parts of it, with a great deal of input coming from Allen Ginsberg.
This article was what effectively gave the Beats their first taste of national notoriety and the next was Evergreen Review #2, which had an introductory letter from Rexroth. This came out in 1957 but Ginsberg and Rexroth were in contact about it from at least December 1956. By this point, Ginsberg had left San Francisco. In spite of being the face of the San Francsico scene, he’d only stayed in the Bay Area for about two years.
In December 1956, Ginsberg was in New York trying to capitalise upon his early successes, with Howl and Other Poems having been published in October. From two unpublished letters he wrote that month, we can already see the two poets’ very changed circumstances. In these letters, Ginsberg relayed the news that Rexroth’s contributions to major publications had been rejected whilst his own had been accepted. To be clear, Ginsberg was not revelling in this at all. He was not gloating. He wanted Rexroth and all his friends to be published together—and they were, at times—but from Rexroth’s perspective this must have been difficult news to bear. The Beats were starting to attract nationwide attention and he was becoming known as the old man who had generously supported them.
In early 1957, Rexroth was still able to put aside his personal feelings to support the Beat writers. He wrote positively of them for Evergreen and also for The Nation. In the latter he even praised Kerouac. Almost everything he would say later about Kerouac was negative and usually unfair, but at this point he was still willing to spare a few kind words for the sake of literature. Perhaps it was because Rexroth still held onto some hope for himself. At this point, he was experimenting with jazz poetry alongside Lawrence Ferlinghetti at a place called the Cellar.[8] When the Howl trial began later that year, Rexroth was outspoken in defence of Ginsberg’s poetry, speaking on his radio show and then later in court.
He also praised the Beats in his essay “Disengagement,” written for New World Writing in 1957, but it drew intense criticism and arguably sabotaged Rexroth’s own reputation. Because of it, he was seen as the elder sponsor of these young hooligan poets and widely condemned. In fact, the essay upset everyone from the Beats to the San Francisco poets and the literary establishment. It is telling that Rexroth republished this essay several times, editing it substantially to reflect a growing distaste for the Beat writers. In the first version of the essay, he was guardedly polite about Kerouac, acknowledging his importance as a writer, but when he later published it in The Nation, he attacked him viciously. He said Kerouac’s writing was “terrifying gibberish that sounds like a tape recording of a gang bang with everybody full of pod, juice and bennies all at once.”[xx] In a third version, he omitted both Kerouac and Creeley entirely.
By 1959, Rexroth wanted absolutely nothing to do with the Beats. When occasionally the name Ginsberg came up, he was usually polite enough to note that “Howl” was a good poem, but he always took the chance to attack Kerouac. He did this in essays and public speeches and in interviews. He even went on tirades against the Beats when he was abroad, and the British press loved his hysterical rants.
Through all of this, Ginsberg attempted to be the voice of reason. In yet more unpublished letters—and this is a shame because these are among the best letters he ever wrote—Ginsberg pleaded for civility and restraint. Again, he was used to dealing with madness because of his mother and Peter Orlovsky and any number of unbalanced friends, so he could show tremendous kindness and patience. But Rexroth never replied. He simply went to reporters and told them outrageous stories about the Beats that ended up in sensational tabloid headlines. Between late September and mid-October 1959, Ginsberg wrote a series of pleading letters, attempting to get Rexroth to talk personally rather than publicly. He passionately defended Kerouac, who was getting the worst of it, and who was struggling under the burden of fame. Kerouac had done something similar, attempting to make good in letters and in person but with no success, and then he made things worse by depicting Rexroth in an (accurate but also) unflattering light in The Dharma Bums. In one of these unpublished letters, Ginsberg told Rexroth that he had a right to feel upset about his depiction as Reinhold Cacoethes but added, “you leave yourself open to such outrageous parody by your own outrageous pomposity at times.”
These letters show a more confident and mature Ginsberg, now willing to criticise Rexroth directly rather than making unkind comments to others. It is a very significant change in tone from what we see in earlier letters (and in fact it was rare for anyone to speak so honestly and directly, for other writers typically said things like this behind Rexroth’s back). Ginsberg was, however, fair and balanced. He came across as angry at times but he was always reasonable. He countered Rexroth’s lies and poor behaviour and begged for some kind of response. It is clear he had not heard from him in a long time. His main point, though, was that everyone—Rexroth included—would be better off if they could just talk privately and cease this pointless fighting.
Rexroth, sadly, was beyond reasoning with. He refused even to respond to Ginsberg and continued his public harassment of the Beat writers. It is possible the personal damage was too great from the fallout with Creeley, and he likely could not move past his diminished reputation and jealousy of these young writers’ successes. From his perspective, he had risked his reputation for these ingrates, who had in turn insulted him, and he was determined not to be lumped in with the beatnik scene. His mental health was obviously damaged and it is possible that no amount of communication would have resolved their differences. A great many of Rexroth’s closest friends over the years found the same problem: They loved Kenneth and did nothing to deliberately hurt them, but he turned against them and no amount of effort could win him back.
To add another layer of complexity to this situation, Ginsberg asked Rexroth in these letters whether he would recommend him for a Guggenheim fellowship. This may perhaps seem strange or overly optimistic given the animosity, but in fact Rexroth did finally reply on October 19 and began his letter:
Dear Allen,
Of course I will be glad to recommend you for a Guggenheim. But don’t expect me to approve all of your activities and friends, nor your or their childish boasting about [illegible] and their sophomoric “Buddhism” and Evil parody of the [illegible]…
As my transcription here makes clear, the letter is unfortunately rather difficult to decipher. There are two reasons for that. Firstly, Rexroth had written on both sides of very thin paper that has not held up well over the years, and secondly he was at times so angry that his penmanship visibly deteriorated.
The letter begins and ends with some positivity towards Ginsberg but in the middle is filled with an angry, irrational, and often illegible tirade against the other Beat writers. It is hard to know exactly what he was saying except that he loathed all the Beat writers and regretted that their juvenile poetry had taken over San Francisco. He ended the first part by switching back to clearer writing and being civil:
Anyway—I hope you get the guggenheim [sic] – you deserve it, you are a good poet. India? Let’s hope you find that there is a world beyond madness—a pretty good world once you’ve got there.
Overleaf, he switched back to ranting in almost indecipherable handwriting. He began “For your pal’s information,” presumably referring to Kerouac. Although it’s hard to read, certain words stand out: “drunk,” “delinquent,” “high,” “sophomore.” One sentence that can be deciphered in spite of his return to manic hand movements is “I do not get my kicks gang fucking other peoples [sic] wives or frightening children.”
Altogether, this letter is a fascinating insight into Rexroth’s character. In one sense, it adds little that is new because he was widely reported to be erratic, angry, irrational, and yet sometimes kind and sponsoring of younger poets. We knew already that he loathed Kerouac and believed he was involved in orgies with Marthe. But this document is a rare first-hand example of that hatred, with his handwriting speaking as loudly as body language or facial expressions.
The next letter, on October 21, is in my opinion one of Ginsberg’s greatest. He writes passionately for four pages about his feelings on Kerouac, Buddhism, the media, and the ongoing beatnik fad. I shall quote some highlights here:
I am not a Bhuddist [sic] & have never ‘boasted’ of being one. Gary presumably is & does not boast. Kerouac has his own Bhuddism [sic] & it is not sophomoric, certainly it is more Artful than you give it credit for and he is not shallowly read nor experienced in the subject. For you to assume so outrageously a proprietary attitude as to who is and who is not sophomoric among Bhuddists [sic] of Buddhists among people of such depth and complexity as Kerouac, is humorless & serves no good humane or critical function.
If there are other ‘beatnicks’ boasting of Bhuddism [sic] this is not my or Jack’s responsibility but the responsibility of a degraded press, which has consistently vulgarized every charming thing we’ve done and reported most sordidly every fault & personal sadness.
Nor do I see justice in your reference to my or for that matter K’s or presumably Corso is included, ‘evil parody’ of the ‘sane and uncompromised way of life some of us have worked out here in SF.’ Your letter is not that sane, in fact it still seems to me to be flipped & it would be the callower part of friendship for me to hide my reaction from you.
We are identified with San Francisco poetry & at the same time identified with something other than san francisco [sic] in ‘public eye’ which has been the whole beat shebang. The identification with San Francisco is inevitable under the circumstances of the first readings and our various visits there & my long stay & there is nothing sad about that—where does all this splintering and weirdness come from?
He ends by saying “I am going to India to have a rest” because he was tired and in ill health due to “doing battle with the Philistines” that were in part emboldened by Rexroth’s public statements. He signed the letter “Love Allen” and added a handwritten note that warned Rexroth not to “humorlessly mis-interpret” the letter to worsen the situation. I will stop there for the sake of fair use, but I hope that one day the letter is published in full, for it is truly a great Beat document.
I hardly need to say that Rexroth did not reply. Ginsberg was being optimistic attempting to open dialogue with him but then that was always one of his best traits. He constantly reached out in the hope of better relations between poets (if they were male…) and understood better than anyone that their individual successes would come more easily if they worked together or at least stopped sabotaging one another. Rexroth’s single greatest talent, however, was neither poetry nor linguistics; it was making enemies. He could fall out with anyone for any reason, and once you had earned his ire—whether you actually did anything to deserve it or not—you were unlikely ever to earn back his love and trust.
“Happy to hear a word, any word, from you”: Strained relations in the 1960s & ’70s
When Ginsberg first reached out to Rexroth, he was an unknown and Rexroth had a national reputation. Nearing fifty, Rexroth probably felt in his poetic prime, having placed himself at the centre of the developing West Coast scene. For all his myriad flaws, he was supportive of young poets and when he encouraged the Beats at the 6 Gallery it was very much in character for him. He had no idea what pain they would cause him soon after, both in terms of personal injury and also as they massively eclipsed his reputation, supplanting him as the poets primarily thought of as representing San Francisco (even though most of them only lived there a short while). There were perhaps signs even by March 1956, when Ginsberg introduced Rexroth at the Berkeley Town Hall reading—a reversal of the 6 Gallery reading. By 1957, it was Ginsberg helping Rexroth get published, and in 1958 and ’59 the Beats surpassed him in terms of reputation. Their books outsold his; their names filled the headlines. Rexroth’s star was descending as theirs rapidly ascended into the literary night.
Ginsberg continued to write Rexroth but it seems that he received few responses. In 1963, Rexroth wrote a rare letter to Ginsberg asking for a list of good poets under the age of 35, probably for some anthology or to be mentioned in an essay. Ginsberg responded with several letters and postcards, the first of which began “Happy to hear a word, any word, from you.” He listed a great many poet friends and described their work, but even though it was Rexroth who initiated this round of communication, it was typically one-sided. Ginsberg took the chance to beg for a reconsideration of Kerouac, particularly Mexico City Blues, gently pointing out that most smart people appreciated his poetry. “I wish you would look again more sympathetically,” he wrote. “It is genius, mellow genius.” He signed his letter, “love / As ever / Allen.” It seems, though, that Rexroth continued to shut Ginsberg out and had only written him for a list.
There are yet more unpublished letters and no doubt some were written that were later lost. In all of them, Ginsberg reached out to Rexroth with friendly notes or offering opportunities. Sometimes he just wanted to meet and have a chat. In one, he very delicately asks if he can come by for a visit before leaving San Francisco on a cross-country trip in his new VW bus. “Would have written before or called, but was not sure how you felt,” he said. Another from 1965 says, “I hope you are well and not still angry with me.” There is no indication that any of these received replies. Perhaps they spoke on the phone, but the surviving letters from Ginsberg suggest that Rexroth wanted little to do with him and ignored all attempts at reconciliation.
The two men met at least a few times in the coming decades but it is not clear how well they got along. Rexroth’s life did not go terribly well and arguably—at least from his point of view—the turning point had been his sponsorship of the Beats. He always lamented being associated with them and yet he could hardly escape them. He left San Francisco in 1968 for a job teaching at the University of Santa Barbara, but in 1973, his tenure was not renewed. A number of poets, including Ferlinghetti, Snyder, and Ginsberg, who was by then the most famous living poet, read in support of him. One wonders what Rexroth felt about the latter’s participation but there are no extant accounts. In his biography by Linda Hamalian, there are details about what Ferlinghetti, Snyder, and Rexroth said at the event but nothing about Ginsberg. Contemporary documents show the event being advertised but say nothing of what happened except that the poets “read from their recent works.”[xxi]
I suspect Rexroth was somewhat embarrassed but he also felt a degree of gratitude, calling it “a tremendously moving thing” during a reading the following year. It was also successful because following the reading his contract was extended for one more year. Earlier that same month, the local press ran an article about Rexroth’s tenure ending and mentioned the Beats, with special praise for Ginsberg. He is quoted as saying,
Allen’s like a Hebrew prophet, but he’s got a nicer disposition… He’s morally one of the most responsible persons I’ve ever met. He has a great sense of social responsibility. Kerouac has none.[xxii]
The two men also read at a poetry festival in Grand Rapids the following month and again in Grand Forks the following year, alongside various Beat poets. According to Linda Hamalian, there was much fighting at the Grand Forks event, mostly stemming from Corso’s constant heckling:
After Rexroth threatened to come down from the stage and silence him by force, Corso left. Rexroth and Corso would confront one another again at the conference, most notably on the last day, when they interrupted and yelled at each other during an “open mike” panel discussion, with each threatening to walk out. They resumed their seats only after Allen Ginsberg’s diplomatic entreaties.
This was also reported by James McKenzie in the introduction to an interview with Ginsberg conducted in 1978,[xxiii] so it was likely to true; however, in 2011 video footage from this event was digitised and I cannot find these fights. Corso was certainly manic and heckled and interupted various people, including Rexroth, but the other poets all dealt with him patiently. At one point, Corso pointed and shouted “you dumb fucker, you don’t understand. You’ve been downing poets all the time.” At other times, he shouted “you old fucker,” but Rexroth took it well at least in the videos that were uploaded. During the worst of it, Corso jumped onto Rexroth’s lap, eliciting a big laugh from Ginsberg, but Rexroth still didn’t appear visibly annoyed. It is true that Rexroth, Ginsberg, and Corso left the stage abruptly in the final video and Rexroth does appear unhappy but the audio is poor and it’s hard to know what truly happened. Most likely, that is where the abovementioned mediation took place.
In any case, what is relevant to this essay is the fact that Ginsberg and Rexroth sat beside each other and shared a microphone through various events over a period of five days. They had differing views but never disagreed directly, instead listening patiently and then offering their own slightly different ideas. They seemed at ease with one another and there is no visible animosity even if sometimes Ginsberg looked bored or dubious when Rexroth spoke. According to Ginsberg, this was the first time all those poets had been together since 1956. They had each met up over the previous two decades but not all together at one time. (All these videos can be found on the University of North Dakota website.)
As the above quote indicates, Rexroth was quite often flattering of Ginsberg in the press even if he did not stay in contact and often chose to attack Ginsberg’s friends (and sometimes his lifestyle). He sometimes threw in backhanded compliments—calling Ginsberg “conventional” or inferring that he did not deserve to be viewed as a San Francisco poet—but generally he would respond to mentions of the Beat Generation with searing putdowns of the others but then very kind words for Ginsberg (and also Snyder). For example, in 1977 he told an interviewer the following, which pretty much paraphrases what he’d been saying for 15 years:
The beats have wished themselves onto me, but I have nothing to do with them. But just because I object to being linked with the beats doesn’t mean I am hostile. I think Allen Ginsberg is a great poet.[xxiv]
He certainly was hostile towards the Beats, but he often repeated the phrase “great poet/artist” in relation to Ginsberg. See, for example, this review of Allen Ginsberg in America (1969).[9]
Then again, as should be abundantly clear by now, Rexroth was temperamental and he was not above insulting Ginsberg if personal circumstances pushed him towards that. In 1975, he criticised Ginsberg in the San Francisco Examiner. Tying him to Kerouac, he said,
Both were extremely conventional writers with an inflexible Madison Avenue orientation. The liberating San Francisco atmosphere, free of market pressures, exploded them or maybe just gave them an incurable case of the bends. They took up and vulgarized any number of San Francisco customs—poetry-and-jazz, for one—which they almost immediately succeeded in destroying.[xxv]
Ginsberg more or less retained his opinion of Rexroth and publicly and privately continued to be respectful of Rexroth’s position even though he could sometimes be mildly (and fairly) critical. Interestingly, he was asked about Rexroth in a 1972 interview with Yves Le Pellec and falsely claimed that Rexroth had revised his opinion of Kerouac.[10] We can see from various examples that this was untrue. It looks like his attempts to reach out dwindled, no doubt in part due to Rexroth’s unwillingness to respond but also because of Ginsberg’s hectic reading schedule and his work at Naropa.
The limited correspondence between the men that I could find in their archives stretched from June 1952 to October 1981. It was in 1981 that Rexroth suffered a severe stroke and became seriously disabled, something Ginsberg learned about in a letter from Gary Snyder. He died ten months later. The date of his death was June 6, 1982—thirty years and three days after Ginsberg sent his first letter to Rexroth. In fact, given the three-day delivery time for letters sent between New Jersey and San Francisco, Rexroth quite possibly died 30 years to the day after receiving that letter.
“He was mentor and friend”: A confusing end
This would be a neat way to end an essay, but that would be dishonest. This essay has so far gone well beyond the usual story of Ginsberg and Rexroth, showing the extent to which their relationship was a complex and strained one, and although things become markedly less clear towards the end, it does seem like the relationship underwent some final difficulties that extend beyond Rexroth’s death. These add a further layer of complexity and unfortunately they are somewhat confusing.
In the communication I was able to dig up, there are no letters between Ginsberg and Rexroth between 1965 and 1981. That does not mean that they did not speak. As we’ve seen, they did attend a few of the same events. They could also have spoken on the phone. However, it should be abundantly clear by now that their relationship after 1957 largely comprised of Ginsberg attempting to speak with Rexroth and Rexroth mostly ignoring him.
It was on August 6, 1981, that Snyder told Ginsberg, “I just heard Rexroth had another severe stroke and is quite disabled.”[xxvi] On August 25, Ginsberg sent a postcard from Mexico, co-signed with Kazuko Shiraishi, Morgan Gibson, and Andrei Voznesensky. Each of them wrote a few words and Ginsberg’s part said, “We miss you! Sitting together in Hotel Near Chapultapec Park.” He then signed his name twice for some reason. There is nothing particularly strange about this and the card seems like a nice gesture. No one mentions Rexroth’s health but then it was a single postcard signed by four people. There was little room for tactful messages and perhaps the gesture was simply to show they were thinking of him.
Later that year, in October, Ginsberg wrote to Rexroth showing acknowledgement of his condition (but oddly not wishing him well). This letter was written to inform Rexroth of plans for the 1982 Kerouac celebration at Naropa and asked him to write “a sentence or paragraph of encouragement.” Ginsberg knew fine well that Rexroth’s opinion of Kerouac had not changed. Even after Kerouac’s death, Rexroth spoke ill of him repeatedly. Both the man and his work were trash, in Rexroth’s mind. The more I read this short letter, the more I wonder why Ginsberg sent it. Was he mocking Rexroth? Was he being astoundingly naïve? The latter is obviously the likelier explanation and certainly Ginsberg has pushed Rexroth to revise his opinion over the years. Ginsberg’s letter listed all the famous people—including Creeley, for some inexplicable reason—who would be in attendance to celebrate the man Rexroth had come to hate so badly. Ginsberg even quoted Laughlin’s endorsement, presumably one of the few that might have pressured Rexroth into changing his mind. He did not, and he died a month before the event.
This letter—which comes from the Buffalo papers rather than Rexroth’s archive—is a very strange one indeed. It began “I know you’re too ill to come but want to keep you informed” and later he says “we would appreciate some swift word whether you can come.” Yet further one, he writes, “I would like to invite you to participate in this conference […] I would also enjoy hearing your ideas on the format and topics you feel are most important to cover.” He then says he will be too busy to receive Rexroth’s response but hopes it can be sent to “Judith Lief, the Dean of Naropa Institute.” It’s almost as though he’s chopped up and used parts of a form letter, then personalised it so that it is contradictory.
Perhaps I am being overly suspicious here. As we have seen, Ginsberg did a lot for Rexroth and went to lengths to maintain their relationship. Quite possibly he was just very busy and blinded by his love of Kerouac, but there is more to this… and this is where things start to get very strange.
After Rexroth’s death, Ginsberg was asked by the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters to write a eulogy. It seems he put this off for a long time and then finally submitted it in July 1983. What is odd, though, is that Ginsberg did not write it. It was written by Ted Berrigan and Alice Notley. Ginsberg only wrote one paragraph and made a few small edits. This is noted in a handwritten line from Ginsberg above one draft of the document:
Eulogy for Rexroth composed by Ted Berrigan & Alice Notley, with editing and additional comments by Allen Ginsberg
Incredibly, it was later submitted as “by Allen Ginsberg” with no mention of the two poets who actually wrote it. It does not even sound like Ginsberg’s writing. He sometimes had poet friends write for him (although never poems, always prose) and he would later “Ginsbergize” these works but here even the edits are very minimal and the result—excluding that one paragraph he did write, which rather shockingly claimed Rexroth was “friend and mentor to” both Creeley and Kerouac!—is a dry eulogy that could have been written by any newspaper reporter. (You can find it in Deliberate Prose.)
Putting aside for a moment that questionable choice to falsely depict Rexroth’s relationship to two men that he absolutely loathed, we have to ask why Ginsberg did not write the eulogy himself. Had something happened between them that finally turned him against Rexroth? One can see in a few remarks made from the late seventies and the eighties that Ginsberg was a bit more critical about Rexroth. Whilst these align with earlier statements in personal correspondence, it is only now that he speaks ill of Rexroth in public. But even so, these are not particularly harsh or unfair remarks and he was mostly eager to position Rexroth as a major poet deserving of respect, influential in the San Francisco poetry scene but not the “father of the Beats,” as the media had wanted to portray him.
Some remarks that he made during this time were critical of Rexroth’s most famous poem, “Thou Shalt Not Kill,” and it is perhaps worth noting then that of the very few edits he made to Berrigan and Notley’s eulogy concerned this very poem:
ORIGINAL: […] his shocking and controversial THOU SHALT NOT KILL […]
GINSBERG’S EDIT: […] his shocking and controversially anti-bourgeois-Philistine THOU SHALT NOT KILL […]
It is not a major change and in fact it brings some positive attention towards Rexroth’s most famous work. We can assume that Ginsberg saw his addition as flattering Rexroth. But as I’ve written before, he was actually quite scathing about “Thou Shalt Not Kill,” calling it “beatnik poem […] it was not very classy, not very strong as poetics.”[xxvii] In 1985, he would fall out with Ann Charters after she pointed out that “Howl” had very obviously borrowed from Rexroth’s poem and yet Ginsberg had failed to acknowledge this, and then in 1987 he came clean in an interview with Regina Weinreich, saying now that it was “a really terrific poem.”[xxviii] He claimed to have forgotten the influence of Rexroth but was now keen to admit it.
Still, though, it doesn’t explain why he felt unwilling to write the eulogy or edit it in any major way. He likely felt some guilt about this poetic connection but that doesn’t solve this mystery. To do that, perhaps we can look at one final falling out.
Those who are well-versed in Beat history and particularly the biography of Allen Ginsberg will surely know of an awful incident that occurred in 1975. I am referring of course to the event covered in the books The Party (by Ed Sanders) and The Great Naropa Poetry Wars (by Tom Clark). Ginsberg’s guru Chögyam Trungpa had two poets violently stripped during a drunken party and then Ginsberg attempted to cover up or at least downplay what had happened. The news quickly spread throughout the country and eventually resulted in those two books, both published in 1980. This was a difficult period for Ginsberg and he felt embarrassed by his own handling of the situation, as well as what he perceived as dishonest and paranoid behaviour by Tom Clark and others. Whilst the whole affair troubled him and tarnished his image, it was The Great Naropa Poetry Wars that upset him the most, and this is where Rexroth comes back into the picture. On the back page of Clark’s book, Rexroth wrote scathingly of Trungpa, calling him “the counter Buddha” who “has unquestionably done more to harm Buddhism in the United States than any man living.” He then said that Trungpa ought to be deported and forced into hard labour in rural Tibet.
Ginsberg’s original response to the incident had been to give a long interview to Clark (contained in this book) but that had done more harm than good, so in public he stayed relatively quiet after the book’s publication. Michael Schumacher wrote that Ginsberg considered but did not pursue legal action on the grounds of libel,[xxix] understanding that this would be perceived as hypocritical given his continual advocacy of free speech. He knew that he could not be seen to endorse censorship but was desperate to protect Trungpa, and so he privately pressured the publisher to take the book out of print.[xxx] It was certainly not Ginsberg’s finest hour, and even Ferlinghetti remonstrated with him: “I agree with Rexroth—what are you doing defending this petty dictator […]?”[xxxi] He called Trungpa “an oriental despot” and compared him to Richard Nixon. But—as Ed Sanders put it—Ginsberg “loved Trungpa much in the / way he’d loved Jack Kerouac.”[xxxii] His judgement was clouded and his actions were hypocritical and damaging. He responded to Ferlinghetti by comparing the current fracas to the “old fashioned San Francisco poesy wars of past,”[xxxiii] suggesting that he viewed it once again as someone he loved and respected (Trungpa/Kerouac) being unfairly assaulted by misguided forces (Clark/Rexroth).
Rexroth was appalled by Ginsberg’s defence of Trungpa and disgusted by Naropa (even though the event at which the assault had taken place was not officially sponsored by Naropa, nor did it take place on the Naropa campus). He not only contributed his thoughts for the back page of Clark’s book but responded to Ginsberg’s attempts at censorship by lobbying Geoffrey Gardner, the editor of a Rexroth festschrift (The Ark 14), to remove Ginsberg’s contribution.[xxxiv]
We can see then that an already difficult relationship had become more strained in 1980, which possibly explains why Ginsberg’s 1981 correspondence was a little odd and why he could not bring himself to write a eulogy in 1982. I suggested that perhaps there was a degree of mockery in Ginsberg’s letter and possibly even in the eulogy, and if so I wonder whether that was an effort at hitting back at Rexroth for insulting Trungpa.
As I said at the beginning of this section, it is all a little unclear. We must consider various possibilities before passing judgement. The letter from 1981 possibly came from a lack of tact, or maybe because Ginsberg was extremely busy and distracted by other responsibilities at the time. Also, he was always blinded by his love of Kerouac. Maybe he was naively reaching out, hoping as always for a unified poetic front and good relations between old friends. As for the eulogy, he was overworked that year and possibly had two friends help out in return for financial aid[11] but then decided that since the Academy had wanted a eulogy by Ginsberg, it was better to put his name on it. The inclusion of the statement about Rexroth as “friend and mentor to” Kerouac and Creeley could also be from naivety even if an extreme case. There are certainly more than a few cases of wishful thinking in Ginsberg’s accounts of personal history.
Conclusion
It might seem from a reading of several Beat biographies and histories that the connections between Rexroth and the generation he helped launch before disavowing had been thoroughly documented, but as is so often the case there was more to be uncovered. I do not mean to suggest that this essay has exhausted the possibilities and I freely admit that the last section raises more questions than it answers. Certainly, this essay could have been expanded into a short book just covering these two poets and a longer work if we considered the other Beats. (Snyder, McClure, and Ferlinghetti have much to say about Rexroth, and that’s before we get into Beat-related figures like Duncan, Spicer, Everson, and Denise Levertov.) However, I hope that it has provided more insight into the relationship between two men whose lives intersected at a key moment in modern literary history.
It struck me when I was researching this that their roles reversed greatly, from the young poet reaching out across the continent for advice and assistance to that same poet even a decade later possessing a far greater reputation and extending his help back to the older one. It is more complex, as we have seen, and at times one feels Ginsberg was deceptive, though it is never 100% clear that he was as duplicitous as certain of the quotes above suggest. It seems that he could also be quite blunt with Rexroth although this was quite rare, probably because he understood how easily Rexroth could be offended. Regardless, it is apparent that in spite of various unkind remarks, Ginsberg really did respect Rexroth’s views, experience, and talent.
When we look into the relationships between the various people associated with the Beat Generation, we often find great complexities. It is tempting to view these people as loving friends but of course they had big fallouts and needed to work through a number of issues. With Ginsberg and Rexroth this was certainly the case. I have focused a little more on Ginsberg’s possible weaknesses because Rexroth’s are pretty well documented elsewhere. But as deep dives into the Beats almost always demonstrate, no one is perfect. The best minds are deeply flawed and great talent and intellect are often paired with madness, cruelty, or childishness.
As always, I hope this essay provokes discussion and opens doors to further study, for there is much more to say about Allen Ginsberg, Kenneth Rexroth, and the birth of the Beat Generation.
Foonotes
[1] This book was Empty Mirror and Random House did indeed reject it.
[2] Ginsberg believed Rexroth was editing Perspectives but he had only edited one issue. He had no permanent role at the magazine aside from perhaps informally advising James Laughlin. Letters to Laughlin show that it stretched their friendship, with Rexroth attempting to dictate some of the contents but Laughlin frequently rejecting his suggestions. Rexroth claimed the magazine was “neofascist” and “imperialist propaganda,” but when it was published he quite liked it.
[3] If this name is familiar, it is possibly because it was in Emerson’s files that the Joan Anderson letter finally resurfaced in 2011.
[4] I have discussed this at length with Bill Morgan and after examining a great many clues we could not reach any conclusion, for there are too many possibilities. Ginsberg gives page numbers that show it was a longer work but without examining all drafts of all poems from a period of more than 6 months it is not possible to say—and even if that were possible, it would assume that this exact typescript had been saved in his archives.
[5] It is perhaps worth mentioning here that when Ginsberg first reached out to Rexroth in 1952, he had already gotten very positive feedback on his poems from Kerouac, whom he admired greatly. About the same poems that were sent to Rexroth, Kerouac had responded, “Blow, baby, blow!” and said they were truly great works. One gets the feeling, then, that Ginsberg sought out Rexroth for a more conventional poetic opinion—the feedback of a man whose experience and knowledge tied him to a different tradition. Thus, perhaps both poets viewed the other as “conventional” and himself as breaking with tradition. Or perhaps he felt that his close friends might flatter him and that the curmudgeonly old Rexroth, a brutal critic and master of the put-down, would offer a more ruthless interpretation from which Ginsberg could learn.
[6] No documents explicitly state this but a close examination of letters and journals from various people indicates this is the most likely date. It certainly occurred on a Friday in that month.
[7] This is a reference to Natalie Jackson, who died by suicide in November 1955 after a tortured relationship with Neal Cassady.
[8] See Leon Horton’s essay on these readings in Beatdom #25.
[9] It is relevant to this essay that Rexroth said in the review, “Probably the best journalistic picture of Ginsberg available is Paul Carroll’s many-page interview in the April 1969 issue of Playboy.” That is because Rexroth saved a copy of this in his file of correspondence with Ginsberg. It is interesting that Rexroth saw fit to keep it alongside Ginsberg’s letters. I’m not sure “journalistic picture” is the right term but it is a great interview. Oddly, we see Ginsberg advocating Scientology here among many other quirky interests of the era.
[10] In this interview, Ginsberg criticised Rexroth’s “very stupid review” of Mexico City Blues, saying that “it was a great blow to the advancement of the general culture in America, it just killed maybe ten years’ time.” In 1989, he said almost the same thing, though one decade had grown into several: “Alas Rexroth’s 1960 wrong-headedness set the wrong course of mis-appreciation of Mexico City Blues for decades.” (The Letters of Allen Ginsberg, p.432)
[11] I asked several people who knew Ginsberg at this point for their opinions and memories. None could explain it but it was suggested that Ginsberg wanted to make paying work for Berrigan. Berrigan died the following year and Notley died in 2023, so it is impossible to ask them. It is perhaps worth noting that Berrigan considered Rexroth’s Classics Revisited among the 10 greatest books ever written (Collected Poems of Ted Berrigan, p.457), so perhaps he petitioned Ginsberg for the honour of writing the eulogy, though that does not explain why Ginsberg took credit. One final point is that Berrigan had attempted to act as peacemaker in Naropa (I Greet You… p.249) and so perhaps he knew Ginsberg was not up to the task of a Rexroth eulogy so soon after this falling out and offered to do it on his behalf. Perhaps someone with more insight can get in touch or leave a comment below.
Endnotes
[i] Kenneth Rexroth Papers, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles. All subsequent letters from Ginsberg to Rexroth are from this source.
[ii] Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg: The Letters, p.333 Admittedly, this is Ginsberg reporting Corso quoting Rexroth, but it seems likely to have been true.
[iii] The Letters of Allen Ginsberg, p.29
[iv] Family Business, p.29
[v] Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg: The Letters, p.233
[vi] The Letters of Allen Ginsberg, p.97
[vii] The Letters of Allen Ginsberg, p.81
[viii] Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg: The Letters, p.233
[ix] Kenneth Rexroth and James Laughlin: Selected Letters, p.241
[x] A Life of Kenneth Rexroth, p.154
[xi] Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg: The Letters, p.240
[xii] Howl: Original Draft Facsimile, p.xii
[xiii] Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg: The Letters, p.238
[xiv] The Letters of Allen Ginsberg, p.122
[xv] The Letters of Allen Ginsberg, p.122
[xvi] Allen Ginsberg in America, p.48
[xvii] Jack Goodwin to Lewis Ellingham, July 4, 1983
[xviii] A recording of the event can be found here: https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/wz608kc4019
[xix] The Selected Letters of Allen Ginsberg and Gary Snyder, p.7
[xx] For a comparison of these versions, see A Life of Kenneth Rexroth, p.269
[xxi] Goleta Sun, May 31, 1973
[xxii] Santa Barbara News-Press, May 6, 1973
[xxiii] First Thought: Conversations with Allen Ginsberg, p.62-63
[xxiv] SF Chronicle, November 18, 1977
[xxv] Qtd here: https://www.literatureandarts.com/kenneth-rexroth/project-two-32jxd
[xxvi] The Selected Letters of Allen Ginsberg and Gary Snyder, p.234
[xxvii] Jack’s Book, p.198
[xxviii] Conversations with Allen Ginsberg, p.124
[xxix] Dharma Lion, p.648
[xxx] A Life of Kenneth Rexroth, p.365
[xxxi] I Greet You At The Beginning of a Great Career, p.248
[xxxii] The Poetry and Life of Allen Ginsberg, p.111
[xxxiii] I Greet You At The Beginning of a Great Career, p.249
[xxxiv] A Life of Kenneth Rexroth, p.365
Thank you for this substantial accounting of the Ginsberg/Rexroth relationship. I found it illuminating, kinda like what happens when you drop a torch in well. Looking forward to the next Beatdom. Really appreciate the North Dakota link. Rexroth's relations with Gary Snyder could use a similar treatment. My understanding is that both writers remained better friends than with Beat friends throughout the difficulties. All the best.
Have you commented somewhere. on the question of whether "Thou Shalt Not Kill'
"influenced" "Howl"- or more generally was A.G. ever known speak about that Rexroth poem in letters/journals /interviews. And what is your own opinion about "Thou Shalt Not Kill " as a poem in itself ? and it's possible relation -or not -to "Howl"? Thanks for this great piece.