212 PA RT T W O
in things,” said William Carlos Williams. Here, ideas arise from “the heart of
night,” “like a fist,” “cut the water.”
At eighteen Rexroth’s life changed when “an hour’s conversation in a sun-
baked patio” with an older poet in Taos, New Mexico, turned him toward Tu
Fu. From then on he brought many classical poets to American consciousness.
As a conscientious objector during World War II, for instance, he calls his ver-
sion of a loaded Tu Fu poem “The War Is Permanent.”
Tumult, weeping, many new ghosts.
Heartbroken, aging, alone, I sing
To myself. Ragged mist settles
In the spreading dusk. Snow skurries
In the coiling wind. The wineglass
Is spilled. The bottle is empty.
The fire has gone out in the stove.
Everywhere men speak in whispers.
I brood on the uselessness of letters.Graphic mist, dusk, snow, and wind (Rexroth liked drawing Chinese calligraphy
for his poems) bring home war’s everpresence, via nature. While he says his
versions came mainly from the Chinese, this is a slight stretch. He ’s tuning up
an Englishwoman’s 1929 paraphrase of Tu Fu. “Ragged mist” was her Clouds,
torn in confusion, “spreading dusk” prevailing twilight, “Snow skurries” Hurrying
snowflakes, “coiling wind” whirling wind. “I sing / To myself ” was Tu Fu hum-
ming poems in a deep low voice—her “humming poems” is good, but Rexroth
manages to echo Whitman’s Song of Myself. In 756 Tu Fu, captive and craving
news of a disastrous rebellion, actually said Verily it is futile to send a letter. “I
brood on the uselessness of letters” bends the ancient poem toward Rexroth’s own
wartime, his pun on “letters” as literature putting a life ’s vocation in question.
Born in Indiana and orphaned at thirteen, Rexroth was colorfully self-raised
in Chicago, Ohio, Michigan, the Southwest, and Greenwich Village. He was
precocious in matters of intellect, politics, sexuality, and especially nature. He
recalls a boy
Coming home from swimming
In Ten Mile Creek,
Over the long moraine in the early summer evening,
My hair wet, smelling of waterweeds and mud.
I remember a sycamore in front of a ruined farmhouse,
And instantly and clearly the revelation
Of a song of incredible purity and joy,
My first rose-breasted grosbeak,
Facing the low sun, his body
Suffused with light.