Poet Kenneth Rexroth wrote some 700 columns (1960-67) for SF Examiner; Ken Knabb will post them 50 yrs after original pub date at the Bureau of Public Secrets.
Says Knabb: "Although Rexroth was by that time a well-known figure in the Bay Area, he was known primarily as a political and cultural radical, and even (somewhat misleadingly) as "the godfather of the Beat Generation."
But he was willing to work for the Examiner as long as they gave him complete freedom to write whatever he wanted. They did so until June 1967, when they fired him after he wrote a particularly scathing article about the American police."
Columns from the San Francisco Examiner (1960-1967) and San Francisco Magazine (1968-1975)
Kenneth Rexroths San Francisco Journalism (1960-1975).
bopsecrets.org
http://www.bopsecrets.org/rexroth/sfe
More Kenneth Rexroth columns posted here:
http://www.bopsecrets.org/rexroth/sf
Sam Hamill Rexroth,
on being called Grandaddy of the Beats: "An entomologist is not a bug."
Robert Duncan on KR's role in the San Francisco Renaissance: "He was
our chief librarian."
Mo Hurley Ha!
My grandfather used to hike with Kenneth up Devi's Gulch. My
grandmother religiously saved all his columns; she also sat next to
Marie Rexroth at St. Cecelia's church in Lagunitas for decades! I used
to ride by their cabin on horseback—REXROTH painted
in black on a long wooden board resting in the redwood & oak duff.
Funny reading about Kenneth's girls, knowing that John McBride would
later marry one—he used to spend time with his aunt & uncle who
lived in Nicasio (or had a summer home) & we knew them as well. I
met Kenneth at Sonoma State—I'd organized a reading for him there but he
was a right cranky old codger with everyone religiously kowtowing
before him...he was seemingly bored with living.
Sam Hamill Far
from it. Kenneth was fed up the capitalist criminal class and had many
health problems in his old age. Around young progressives and radicals
he was a-glow. Next fall or spring U of Michigan will publish Rachelle
Lerner's absolutely masterful book on KR, a thoroughly researched
critical appreciation.
Mo Hurley It was right before he died—in 81, I think; and he wasn't in good health...his wife was ? jean?
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