Runaway

There are sparkles of rain on the bright
Hair over your forehead;
Your eyes are wet and your lips
Wet and cold, your cheek rigid with cold.
Why have you stayed
Away so long, why have you only
Come to me late at night
After walking for hours in wind and rain?
Take off your dress and stockings;
Sit in the deep chair before the fire.
I will warm your feet in my hands;
I will warm your breasts and thighs with kisses.
I wish I could build a fire
In you that would never go out.
I wish I could be sure that deep in you
Was a magnet to draw you always home.

Analysis (ai): The poem uses tactile, immediate details—rain, cold skin, fire—to anchor emotional urgency in physical sensation, creating an intimate atmosphere focused on shelter and return.

Structure and Language: Written in free verse with short, direct lines, it avoids rhythmic regularity or rhyme, favoring conversational immediacy over formal constraint, typical of mid-20th-century American lyrical poetry.

Emotional Core: It centers on vulnerability and care, framing reunion not as dramatic reconciliation but as quiet, bodily restoration, emphasizing proximity and warmth as forms of assurance.

Gender and Agency: Unlike many of Rexroth’s poems that idealize female figures in nature-bound or spiritual roles, this one presents a woman who moves independently through harsh weather, suggesting autonomy rather than passivity.

Domestic Space as Sanctuary: The home and fire function as symbolic counterpoints to the storm outside, but unlike his more political or ecological poems, this one isolates the private sphere as the sole site of meaning.

Postwar Context: Composed during a period when domestic stability was culturally emphasized, the poem subtly questions its durability—warmth must be actively maintained, loyalty uncertain.

Modern Concerns: It engages with emotional fragility and the limits of intimacy in modern life, where connection is possible but never guaranteed, mirroring existential anxieties of the postwar era.

Less-Discussed Angle: Rather than reading the speaker as purely nurturing, the repeated wishes reveal insecurity and possessiveness, hinting at dependence masked as caregiving.

Place in Oeuvre: Among Rexroth’s lesser-known lyrics, this stands out for minimalism and psychological tension, diverging from his more expansive odes and translations.

Compared to Contemporaries: Unlike the confessional rawness of Plath or the detached irony of Ashbery, it merges tenderness with restraint, aligning more with William Carlos Williams’ focus on ordinary moments charged with significance.

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Kenneth Rexroth Follow

Yin And Yang

It is spring once more in the Coast Range
Warm, perfumed, under the Easter moon.
The flowers are back in their places.
The birds are back in their usual trees.
The winter stars set in the ocean.
The summer stars rise from the mountains.
The air is filled with atoms of quicksilver.
Resurrection envelops the earth.
Goemetrical, blazing, deathless,
Animals and men march through heaven,
Pacing their secret ceremony.
The Lion gives the moon to the Virgin.
She stands at the crossroads of heaven,
Holding the full moon in her right hand,
A glittering wheat ear in her left.
The climax of the rite of rebirth
Has ascended from the underworld
Is proclaimed in light from the zenith.
In the underworld the sun swims
Between the fish called Yes and No.

Analysis (ai): The poem aligns natural renewal with celestial movements, framing spring as a cosmically orchestrated recurrence. Repetition of "back" underscores cyclical return, mirroring Daoist balance between opposites.

Symbolism of Yin and Yang: Dualities emerge through celestial pairs—moon and sun, winter and summer stars, fish labeled Yes and No—suggesting harmony through opposition. These motifs reflect Daoist philosophy without direct exposition.

Astronomical and Mythological Imagery: The Virgin and Lion reference Virgo and Leo in astrology, tied to seasonal equinoxes. The moon passing from one to the other symbolizes celestial transitions underlying earthly rebirth.

Spiritual Ritual and Secrecy: "Secret ceremony" and "rite of rebirth" imply a hidden cosmic liturgy. Unlike the overt mysticism in Rexroth’s Buddhist-influenced poems, this ritual remains veiled, accessible only through observation of nature.

Scientific and Alchemical Language: "Atoms of quicksilver" introduces a material-scientific tone amid myth, blending pre-modern symbolism with modern physics. This hybrid language appears rarely in Rexroth’s more meditative works.

Engagement with Modern Consciousness: Written mid-20th century, the poem avoids confessional mode dominant in postwar American poetry. Instead, it fuses scientific precision with myth, resisting pure subjectivity.

Formal Structure and Economy: Written in free verse with rhythmic control, it favors declarative statements over lyrical elaboration. Compared to Rexroth’s longer, conversational poems, this one is compact, almost incantatory.

Less-Discussed Angle: Rather than presenting nature as spiritual refuge, the poem frames the cosmos as a ritual stage where humans and animals are participants in an impersonal, ongoing transformation.

Place in Rexroth’s Oeuvre: Among his lesser-known short pieces, this stands out for its synthesis of Western astrology, Daoist balance, and atomic-age imagery—bridging his interest in Eastern thought and scientific modernity.

Relation to Era: Unlike contemporaries exploring fragmentation or irony, Rexroth embraces unity and recurrence, offering a holistic model of existence at odds with dominant modernist dissonance.

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Kenneth Rexroth Follow

Discrimination

I don’t mind the human race.
I’ve got pretty used to them
In these past twenty-five years.
I don’t mind if they sit next
To me on streetcars, or eat
In the same restaurants, if
It’s not at the same table.
However, I don’t approve
Of a woman I respect
Dancing with one of them. I’ve
Tried asking them to my home
Without success. I shouldn’t
Care to see my own sister
Marry one. Even if she
Loved him, think of the children.
Their art is interesting,
But certainly barbarous.
I’m sure, if given a chance,
They’d kill us all in our beds.
And you must admit, they smell.

Analysis (ai): The poem adopts a calmly conversational tone that gradually reveals a deeply entrenched and casual racism, using irony to expose the speaker’s contradictions and self-deception.

Speaker and Satire: The speaker presents themselves as reasonable and tolerant while voicing overt prejudice, revealing satire through dramatic irony—the real target is not the “other” but the speaker’s bigotry.

Historical Context: Written mid-20th century, the poem critiques the subtle and overt racism persistent among liberal-adjacent whites who claim tolerance while maintaining social hierarchies.

Satirical Tradition: Unlike Rexroth’s more lyrical or spiritually inclined works, this poem aligns with his socially critical pieces, using brevity and irony akin to epigrammatic satire.

Form and Structure: Written in free verse with enjambment that mimics natural speech, the form underscores the banality of the speaker’s racism, making the horror more insidious.

Comparison to Author’s Oeuvre: While Rexroth often wrote about love, nature, and Eastern philosophy, this poem stands out for its sharp social critique, closer in spirit to his political essays than his typical romantic or mystical verse.

Engagement with Modern Concerns: The poem anticipates modern discourse on systemic racism and performative allyship, illustrating how prejudice persists behind a facade of civility.

Language and Diction: The plain, unembellished diction contrasts with the violence of the sentiments, emphasizing how normalized such views were in mid-century America.

Subtext on Intimacy and Purity: The repeated emphasis on marriage, children, and smell points to anxieties about racial purity and bodily difference, revealing the emotional core of segregationist thought.

Contrast with Contemporaries: Unlike the direct activism in some Harlem Renaissance or Civil Rights-era poetry, this poem relies on indirection, implicating the reader by refusing to name the targeted group.

Implication of the Unnamed: The group is never specified, which universalizes the mechanism of exclusion and forces readers to confront the structure of prejudice itself.

Less-Discussed Angle: Rather than only condemning overt racism, the poem critiques liberal tolerance that accepts proximity but denies full humanity—allowing coexistence but not kinship.

Relevance to Contemporary Discourse: It resonates with current discussions about microaggressions and structural inequality, where acceptance is conditional and boundaries remain enforced.

Place in Rexroth’s Work: Among his lesser-known satirical poems, this one is notable for its unflinching exposure of hypocrisy without self-righteousness.

Reader’s Role: The poem implicates the reader by withholding judgment, requiring them to recognize the absurdity and horror without being told how to feel.

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Famous poet /1905 - 1982

Kenneth Rexroth

Runaway

Yin And Yang

Discrimination

Famous poets