Customer Reviews (4)

Brilliant poetry, in any language
Open the book anywhere, and the poem works for you! This is a tremendous achievement.Eliot Weinberger has called it"possibly his best translation".

Much of it works of course, because of the novelty of the imagery, e.g. this poem by T'ien Hung:
The dew on the garlic
Is gone soon after sunrise.
The dew that evaporated this morning
Will descend again in tomorrow's dawn.
Man dies and is gone,
And when has anybody ever come back?

But to my mind, a question lingers over the authenticity of the "ttranslation" - are these really reflecting the author's voice, or are they transcreations as in Ezra Pound?While Rexroth certainly knew some Chinese, mostly his sources are other translations, including German and French (see http://www.cse.iitk.ac.in/~amit/books/rexroth-1970-one-hundred-more.html).
Authenticity is especially problematic because at one point, Rexroth composed the "The love poems of Marichiko", poems he claimed were translated from the work of a young Japanese woman.He has clearly captured the oriental spirit, but still the question lingers.In general, the verisimilitude of translations from Chinese (or other non-European languages) rarely match that of Dante or Homer, say.

But whether they are translations or transcreations, they stand on their own as superb poetry.

A beautiful but weaker collection...
I loved "One Hundred Poems from the Chinese" by Mr. Rexroth, and I thought then of course, I would want "More". And it is a very lovely collection of poems, tho I feel the stronger poems and poets were covered in the first book. The poems in "More" are very good, just not at the par of the first one.

An Authority on the subject
Rexroth was first introduced to me by my high school teacher while we were studying Chinese literature.At first, I couldn't quite understand whatwas so great about Chinese poems, why Li Po and Tu Fu, and many others areso greatly admired.After this, I've come to a much better understandingof Chinese literature in general, and a much greater love for it.Irecommend this book to anyone.

Well, actually, this is CHINESE poetry.
Well, actually, this is CHINESE poetry. Really excellent translation. Rexroth was a great American poet, and ground breaker as a translator of both Chinese and Japanese poetry, and all his work is still worth reading. ... Read more

Product Description
Rexroth, More Classics Revisited. the second volume of Rexroth's Classics essays. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Brilliant companion to the first volume
Rexroth scores again in this second "Classics Revisited" volume.The books he loved -- the classics of the non-Western and the Western world -- he saw as emanations of living feeling, lines of communicationmiraculously kept open.

Rexroth wrote in the first volume:"Lifemay not be optimistic, but it certainly is comic, and the greatestliterature present man wearing the two conventional masks;the grinningand the weeping faces that decorate theatre prosceniums.What is the facebehind the mask?Just a human face -- yours or mine.That is the irony ofit all -- the irony that distinguishes great literature -- it is all soordinary."

(By the way:These essays are such that one can readvolume two before volume one.) ... Read more

Product Description
In this biography of Kenneth Rexroth (1905-82), Linda Hamalian reveals an enigmatic man riven with contradictions. From high-school drop-out, Rexroth transformed himself into a newspaper columnist, painter, dedicated activist and poet, writing on love, marriage, nature and politics. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Beware the Biographer...
Linda Hamalian doesn't like Kenneth Rexroth and that is why everything is wrong about this book.Hamalian comes across like a jilted lover bent on exacting revenge by making a demon of a man who, in my view, doesn't come across as any worse than many artists... Rexroth was a poet who occasionally behaved very badly, and wasn't above sinning every once in a while.So what?
My first reaction to Hamalian's book is "why did you take the time to write what you wrote" but then, I have my theory... her preface describing her youthful idolatry of Rexroth is revealing.She is angry because when she was more naive and didn't know Rexroth's personal flaws, she built him up in her imagination as a quasi-saint, the master poet who had lived a noble life and captured it all in poetry.Upon undertaking research for the biography she discovered he was just a man with many flaws who tried his best but made many mistakes in life...

This vision - of the disappointed fan who has come to see that her idol is not perfect, but a mere mortal - colors her entire narrative.She indulges deeply and frequently in speculation, attributing motives and thoughts to people to explain events.To make thing worse, her judgments of the human character are incredibly shallow; her unfounded, speculative judgments are generally simplistic, popular psychoanalytic cliches to explain and "rationalize" (whatever that word means) the actions taken by people in this book ... Further, when she is at her most critical and judgmental, she often is caught writing without footnotes or citing as sources of her information people who are simply not reliable... people who were Rexroth's enemies in life.She dwells on Rexroth's three failed marriages, describing Rexroth over and over as a philandering monster and his wives, each an enduring saint faultless in Hamalian's narrative. Hamalian goes out of her way to build a case that Rexroth was a monster and a pig.

Hamalian has not written the kind of biography that is appropriate for a poet of significant production.There is almost no engagement with Rexroth's work.Hamalian's engagement with Rexroth's writing is superficial, as if there is a sacred dividing line between biography and literary criticism that must never be crossed.Instead, it is just an gossipy domestic soap opera of who did what to whom and who said what and who slept with whom first and who is mad at whom and for what.The fact that the main character of this book happens to write and publish poetry is completely secondary.This is just the domestic drama of a bad husband, bad father, and n'er-do-well who has a hard time being polite to his peers.It could just as easily be the biography of a school teacher, dog groomer, or jazz musician.

Despite Hamalian's annoying, immature, in fact rude, presence, this book is still a page turner because Rexroth shines through somehow.Rexroth lived a great life and in many ways was a great man, a great citizen, and a great artist.Rexroth was a witness to an extraordinary century and had the sensitivity and perception to understand and describe that century in his writings.If you are familiar with Rexroth's literary output, this narrative can be an illuminating supplement.It is astonishing to me how much of the marvel that was Rexroth still refuses to be destroyed by the biographer. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Insider look at the literary scene from the 1930's to the 1970's
For the three people who might be interested in Rexroth's exchange of letters with his editor, Laughton, this should be of interest.It's funny, crazy, absurd, and informative. Perhaps in a few centuries, it will take on some significance again. ... Read more

Product Description
“Rexroth’s readings from the Japanese master poets are breathtaking in their simplicity and clarity.”—The New York Times

I go out of the darkness
Onto a road of darkness
Lit only by the far off
Moon on the edge of the mountains.
—Izumi Shikobu

Over the years, thousands of readers have discovered the beauty of classic Japanese poetry through the superb English versions by the great American poet Kenneth Rexroth. Mostly haiku, these poems range from the classical and medieval to modern poetry, with an emphasis on folk songs and love lyrics. Because women played such an outstanding role in Japanese literature, included here are selections from their work, including the contemporary, deeply sensuous Marichiko. This elegant, beautifully designed gift book of poems spanning many centuries presents the original texts in romanji, the transliteration into the Western alphabet. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

"Whenever the Wind Blows..."
This was meant to be a Valentine's Day present, but I kind of stole it. Kenneth Rexroth does a wonderful job in this translation and selection of these very old Japanese poems. They are mostly written in the traditional tanka or haiku. The blunt simplicity of the words gives me chills and show the timeless quality of how you can say so much with so little. This collection of poetry reminds me that language is a gift. ... Read more

Product Description
“Nothing stands still in this poetry: the wind blows the trees, the lake water ripples and the ever-present road runs in and out of the hills.”—American Poetry Review

Moss covered paths between scarlet peonies,
Pale jade mountains fill your rustic windows.
I envy you, drunk with flowers,
Butterflies swirling in your dreams.
—Ch’ien Ch’i

This exquisite gift book offers a wide sampling of Chinese verse, from the first century to our own time, beginning with the lyric poetry of Tu Fu, moving to the folk songs of the Six Dynasties Period, on to the Sung Dynasty, and to the present. Also represented are some of the best-known women of Chinese poetry, including Li Ching-chao and Chu Shu-chen. These simple, accessible but profound poems come through to us with a breathtaking immediacy in Kenneth Rexroth’s English versions—a wonderful gift for any lover of poetry.
... Read more