Quotes from Kenneth Rexroth

Poetry has ceased to be a public art and has become, as Whitehead said of religion, "What man does with his aloneness.

The holiness of the real Is always there, accessible In total immanence. The nodes Of transcendence coagulate In you, the experiencer, And in the other, the lover.

You don't become a saint until you lead a good life whether in Tibet or Italy or America.

Mary, my little girl, was confirmed in a Buddhist temple. She saw the Life write up on Buddhism, with pictures of the ceremony, and she said she wanted to be confirmed there because she only liked Jesus as a kid. She was a little disappointed in him when he grew up.

The meaning of life can be revealed but never explained.

I've been around jazz and jazz musicians most of my life.

Men who live like Casanova are seldom interested in themselves; their egocentricity does not give them time for egotism.

This isn't the best town for what we're doing. Too many other things to pull the crowds away.

Erotic love is one of the highest forms of contemplation.

Love is the garment of knowledge.

Crooked cards and straight whiskey, Slow horses and fast women.

The mature man lives quietly, does good privately, takes responsibility for his actions, treats others with friendliness and courtesy, finds mischief boring and avoids it. Without the hidden conspiracy of goodwill, society would not endure an hour.

I've had it with these cheap sons of bitches who claim they love poetry but never buy a book.

Bohemia is a commune in which the Revolution is over and everyone is a member of the aristocracy

Making love with you Is like drinking sea water. The more I drink The thirstier I become, Until nothing can slake my thirst But to drink the entire sea.

I write for one and only one purpose, to overcome the invincible ignorance of the traduced heart. […] I wish to speak to and for those who have had enough of the Social Lie, the Economics of Mass Murder, the Sexual Hoax, and the Domestication of Conspicuous Consumption.

The mature man lives quietly, does good privately, assumes personal responsibility for his actions, treats others with friendliness and courtesy, finds mischief boring and keeps out of it. Without this hidden conspiracy of good will, society would not endure an hour.

My heavy heart has gone this way before.

Fires Burn in my heart. No smoke rises. No one knows.

Do not talk any more. Do not speak. Do not break silence until We are weary of each other. Let our fingers run like steel Carving the contours of our bodies' gold. Do not speak. My face sinks In the clotted summer of your hair. The sound of the bees stops. Stillness falls like a cloud. Be still. Let your body fall away Into the awe filled silence Of the fulfilled summer — Back, back, infinitely away — Our lips weak, faint with stillness. from "When We with Sappho

Japanese poetry does what poetry does everywhere: it intensifies and exalts experience.

Against the ruin of the world, there is only one defense: The creative act.

Love slays what we have been, That we may be what we were not.

Imperceptible It withers in the world, This flower-like human heart.