Episode 34 - Kenneth Rexroth: his life and poetry

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In this episode I talk about the American poet, essayist and translator, Kenneth Rexroth. Like Gary Snyder, who I will speak about in a future episode, Rexroth explores the natural world – both literally, as a hiker through the American landscape, and in his poetry and other writings. Rexroth belongs to the generation immediately prior to Snyder though they did know each other well in the 1950s. I will touch on various strands of his work and point out a few parallels with Buddhist ideas and practices. While Snyder is probably more widely known today, and more influential, I want to begin with Rexroth whose work I am particularly fond of and who had quite an influence on his younger west coast American colleagues. In particular, I want to draw out the ways in which Rexroth celebrated the act of paying attention as a way of revealing the beauty of being alive, and the practice of making poems as a revelation of what one might call the sacred or divine dimensions of nature and life.