Kenneth Rexroth (1905 – 1982)
“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.” – Kenneth Rexroth, More Classics Revisited, “Leo Tolstoy: The Kingdom of God is Within You.”
“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.”
“Against the ruin of the world, there is only one defense—the creative act.”
“My heavy heart has gone this way before.”
“Crooked cards and straight whiskey,
Slow horses and fast women.”
“Japanese poetry does what poetry does everywhere: it intensifies and exalts experience.”
― Kenneth Rexroth, 100 Poems from the Japanese
Michael Lemon Portfolio 