I saw Rakosi a few years back (I'd seen him in the 70s too I think), when he
was only 93... the young person introducing offered to assist but he shook
the arm away politely... he leaned on a lectern which they wanted to move so
he said _so move it_ or something like... they took the lectern away and he
remained standing...
he bubbled at the interview, introducing people to his girlfriend
and he read from his work from its beginning... it gave me temporal
vertigo... and in a strong and constantly modulated voice
L
----- Original Message -----
From: "Frank Parker" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 13 June 2001 05:13
Subject: A Conversation with Carl Rakosi
| Carl Rakosi may be San Francisco's best kept secret. At 96 he's sharper
than
| ever and surely one of the most joyous voices on the entire Coast. And yet
| the City just doesn't seem to realize who they have there. Steve Dickison
| interviewed Carl at his home for The Poetry Center recently and I invite
you
| to read the interview. I've included links for further exploration too,
one
| from Modern American Poetry and one from JACKET. And books by Carl can be
| found at Small Press Distribution:
| http://www.spdbooks.org (enter Rakosi, Carl for an author search).
|
| I've been a fan ever since I found a dog eared copy of AUMULET in a used
| book store 25 years ago. Since then I've had occasion to meet and hear him
| read. What's not to love about this man? So, dear listees, thank you for
| putting up with my enthusiasm when a new interview comes out.
| best
| :fp
|
| A Conversation with Carl Rakosi by Steve Dickison
| http://www.sfsu.edu/~newlit/news/rakosi.htm
|
| (extract:)
| The nearly eighty-year publishing history of American poet Carl Rakosi
| begins in the early 1920s, with a number of poems in a college magazine,
at
| the University of Wisconsin in Madison, then in several national
periodicals
| and "little magazines." An invitation from Louis Zukofsky to contribute to
| the "Objectivists" issue of Poetry magazine (February 1931) was followed
by
| inclusion in An "Objectivists" Anthology (1932), published in France by
| George and Mary Oppen's small expatriate press, To, Publishers. He,
| Zukofsky, Oppen, and Charles Reznikoff would be known henceforth as the
core
| group of "Objectivist" poets. Mr Rakosi dropped out of poetry publishing
| between 1941 and the mid-sixties, devoting himself to social work. Since
his
| return to poetry, books of new and collected earlier work have been
brought
| out by New Directions, Black Sparrow, the National Poetry Foundation, and
| Sun & Moon, among others. Still prolific as he approaches his 96th
birthday,
| Mr Rakosi has had two recent books published in England by etruscan books:
| The Earth Suite (1997) and The Old Poet's Tale (1999)-the latter the first
| of three volumes planned for publication as his Collected Works.
| * * * *
| And at the Modern American Poetry site more from and about Carl Rakosi:
| http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/rakosi/rakosi.htm
|
| (extract:)
| Kent Johnson
|
| Many of his more recent and powerful poems, like "The Menage," "Yaddo,"
| "Lying in Bed on a Summer Morning," "In What Sense I am I," "Ginger," and
| "Associations with a View from the House," are among the most direct
| engagements of the problematics of subject/object relations within the
| Objectivist canon.
|
| [. . . .]
|
| For Rakosi, being fully participant in that mystery of the "outer," also
| implies a need to regard the subject’s desires and speculations with a
sense
| of modesty. While meditations on the nature of cognition and knowledge in
| our poetry have often been a province for melancholic seriousness if not
| outright existential angst, Rakosi--and with remarkable frequency--makes
| them into occasions for self-effacement and an easy acceptance of the
| unknown. In poems like "The Menage" or "How to Be with a Rock" (which may
| well be a take-off on Stevens's solemn and celebrated poem), he shows
| himself to be our happiest—and sometimes funniest—philosophical poet.
| * * * *
| And Carl Rakosi at JACKET online (good photo!):
| http://www.jacket.zip.com.au/jacket01/rakosi01.html
|
| ***************
| Frank Parker
| [log in to unmask]
| http://now.at/frankshome
|
|
