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Chapter 8 (Part Three)
DISCOVERING THE ANARCHIST-BUDDHIST POET:
REXROTH'S LETTERS TO GIBSON (1957-79)
Buddhism and Japan 1975-79
Rexroth visited Japan in 1967, 1972, 1974-75, 1978, and 1980,
to give lectures and readings, to study Japanese culture, and as
always, to write poetry. His first letter to me from Japan was dated 1
February 1975, when he was spending a year-long honeymoon there
with his bride Carol Tinker. During much of that year they resided in
the Higashiyama district of Kyoto. In a large farmhouse that they had
rented, as had Donald Keene and other Japanologists, eight-hundred
year old beams supported the roof above a sunken kitchen and tea-
ceremony room in which hung ancient calligraphies. That first letter
reached me at Goddard College in Vermont, where I had been
chairing the graduate program as this progressive college progressed
towards bankruptcy--one more phase of my disillusionment. For
refuge, I had been meditating daily and had often visited Buddhist
meditation-seminars led by the Tibetan lama Chogyam Trungpa at
his community in Barnet called Tail of the Tiger (later Karme Chô-
ling), though I rejected guru-worship and theocracy. In early 1975 I
had written Rexroth a long letter, asking many questions about
Japanese Buddhism, fundamentally whether (as Gary Snyder
thought) it offered an alternative to the bankruptcy of western
civilization. He replied:
That's quite a letter! I have quoted it to
Japanese & Indian (I just was at an "East-West"
discussion in Bombay) intellectuals and it amazes them -
to whom Buddhism, Hinduism, much less Tantrism is
anathema, and represents only the blackest reaction and
commercialism. In Japan, some of the youngest,
influenced by Snyder, have taken up their own, or Gary's
"Buddhism," which is as much a recent construct as
Suzuki (or Buber's "Zen Judaism") and a kind of Neo-
Tantrism is popular among a very few intellectuals in
India, mostly artists. Most Japanese are totally ignorant of
the very existence of philosophical Buddhism or have ever
read the Lotus [Sutra] or ever heard of the
Lankavatara [Sutra] or the Avatamsaka [Sutra] - or know
the difference between a Buddha & a Bodhisattva.
"Nehan" (Nirvana) they think means "Buddha's Death
Bed."
I'm happy to know you are full of
piss & vinegar and, apparently, transcendentaljism...
Love to you & family Kenneth
Three days later, on 4 February 1975, he updated my
bibliography in Kenneth Rexroth and advised me to teach in
Japan:
The only two books since your bibliography are, I believe,
New Poems (New Directions '74) and
Communalism (Continuum, Herder, Seabury 74).
100 More Japanese Poems are due next year
[second printing], and the Complete Works of Li
Ch'ing Chao [translated with] Chung Ling, probably
76 [actually 1979, both New Directions]. I don't think I
have written many articles. Oh yes,--The Elastic
Retort (Herder Seabury 74) [actually 1973]. I've
never asked George [Saito] about translating me since I've
been here. He lives in Tokyo & I seldom see him. Oh! I
see that you don't have The Orchid Boat: the Women
Poets of China, with Chung Ling (Herder, now
McGraw, now Continuum) [1972]. I have also been doing
a Selected Poems of Shiraishi Kazuko for the
poetry series I am supposed to edit for Continuum [but his
translations of her poems were published instead by New
Directions in 1978]. Last I knew that [Continuum series]
contained 4 Young Women (incl. Carol Tinker),
David Meltzer [1973], Homero Aridjis [1974], Czeslaw
Milosz [1973]. I think it will be mostly foreign poets from
now on.
I certainly advise you to correspond
with Japanese universities about a job. Anybody can get a
job teaching English - but best try the 1st class schools
first. In the Kyoto area, Kyoto University and Doshisha
University and Doshisha Women's College. In the last,
write my good friend Kodama Sanehide in American
Literature. He is a Pound authority and a very fine man.
Remember - Japan's very expensive and you'll find it hard
to live on a guest professor's salary, which is more than
the regular staff get. You can make do on $800 to $1000 a
month - but you'll need help to find a place to live.
Japanese given names come last, family names 1st, sama
= Mr. of Mrs on letters only...
Because I had been teaching in a progressive college, Rexroth
warned me, on 28 February 1975, about the conservatism of Japanese
education:
&nbs; Why don't you apply for a
Fulbright to Japan to study Shingon [Tantric Buddhism]?
& take a leave from Goddard?
...Japanese education is very strict
& old fashioned, much like Russian. Most colleges are
still uniformed & about all middle schools. Teachers are
hard worked and overpaid & students are even harder
worked. So Japanese students are suspicious of
"progressive" education & fear it will be worthless for
them back in Japan. There are no progressive schools in
the country at all - except "Friend's World College"
which is not accredited... Watch your step with Japanese
schools, they are in strict order of excellence and status.
Kansai is nowhere. About like LA State. The order is
Tokyo U, Waseda, Keio, Kobe... And remember - Japan is
extremely provincial... Love
Kenneth
In the spring of 1975, much to my surprise, I was suddenly
invited to teach at Osaka University, and on 4 May, Rexroth
congratulated me:
Dear Morgan san:
Fukuda san has written Kodama san that he should pass
on to me the information that you have been appointed in
Osaka. Very great! Unfortunately unless I too take a new
job we will be back in the states. I am not sure this will
reach you. Write me and I give you names of people.
Faithfully, Kenneth san
We leave in July
Only after arriving in Japan in September did I learn how the
appointment had come about. Rexroth had recommended me to
Sanehide Kodama at Doshisha Women's College in Kyoto, a leading
expert on Ezra Pound who was also writing on Rexroth's work and
had seen my 1972 book. Kodama had recommended me to Rikutaro
Fukuda, the eminent poet-translator and professor of comparative
literature in Tokyo. Fukuda had recommended me to his former
student Mamoru Saito, who had recommended me to his colleagues
at Osaka University. Ironically, though I had agitated for equitable
reforms in American academia, I was dependent on the "Old Boy"
network in Japan in order to teach there. But I was grateful and
overjoyed for a chance to live in Japan. Before moving, I received
indispensable information and advice from Carol and Kenneth, who
tried unsuccessfully to arrange for me to live in their ancient
farmhouse after they returned to the United States in early September
of 1975. On 1 June 1975 he warned me:
Dear Morgan - Let's hope you won't be too disillusioned
with Japan. You have to accept a thoroly modern country
- more in many ways than the USA, with odd & stray bits
of the past - and with underlying little changed traditions.
Buddhism's for burials, Shinto for weddings - both
thoroly commercial & as bankrupting as bar mitzvahs.
You have to search for the real thing. Japan is very
expensive - about on a par with Sweden & much higher
than the USA. It will cost you about Y250,000 a month,
certainly till you get settled - expect to use most of $1,000
a month. We have an incredible place to live - an ancient
farmhouse in the forest in the heart of Kyoto. I advise you
to take it if I can pass it on to you. It costs Y72,000
a/month BUT no "key money" or agent's fees, which can
run to over twice the rent. I would advise you to find a
beautiful and wise Japanese girl to live with. It is very
hard, adjusting to a country where you can't speak the
language - and cant read it. It is not too hard to find a
beautiful & wise lover. Gaijin [foreigners] are widely
preferred to Japanese men, who are the world's worst
MCPs [Male Chauvinist Pigs], while Japanese women are
the world's best - especially the liberated ones & the ones
who want to be liberated. I don't think you'll care to live
in Osaka - it's like Chicago. Kyoto was unbombed & full
of temples etc and old houses and is less than an hour
from Osaka University. Everybody in Japan seems to
travel many miles to work. Tokyo, once you know the
right people, is an exciting city - but a horrible place to
live. I'll send you names of people here & in Tokyo.
Fukuda san is a friend - but it was Kodama san who
passed him your name. Fukuda is a teacher of US
literature & the editor of a very good anthology of
Japanese poetry in English translation. He is a fine man,
good to know. Don't be misled by his conservative
exterior. He is very hip. Unfortunately, my two best
friends, Kodama san and Atsumi Ikuko san (a girl) are
going to the USA. Kodama to Yale & Atsumi to Antioch.
I suggest you write to Katagiri Yuzuru san... He is a friend
of some years - and of Gary Snyder. He is as the Jesuits
say "one of ours." He is a professor of US lit. and the
translator of Bob Dylan and still performs himself
occasionally.
On 14 June 1975 Rexroth went on about his efforts to have his
house approved for me by Osaka University officials, so I could
move in as soon as he returned to Santa Barbara:
You must realize the Japanese usually live one to 2 1/2
hours travel from their work... Y72,000 is very cheap rent
for such a house. Yes, it is furnished. In January &
February utilities would cost another Y30,000 if you were
home all day. Don't forget - Japan is more expensive than
the USA besides the yen is stronger than the dollar - about
294 today. You can walk to an inter-urban train. The
cheapest ryokan [inn] in Kyoto is about Y2500 or
Y3000 c meals. The train ride is less than an hour, but I
don't know about the Osaka station at the University. You
can get a commute book. Above us lives a girl who
teaches every day at Kobe, which is further away &
involves a transfer. Get a good map of the entire Kansai
area in the USA - the Japanese consulate, JAL, or Japan
Tourist Bureau have them. Don't believe everything you
read in the Yellow Peril press. Japan is polluted but the
Inland Sea and Lake Biwa are better than Lake Erie or
even south Lake Michigan. Fish are safe and delicious.
Eat at home. Find a girl friend. Food, if you eat Japanese
style at home costs about the same as Santa Barbara & is
better. Get Japanese cookbooks and How to Eat Cheap
in Japan. There are all sorts of coffee shops in Osaka,
Kobe, Kyoto where you can meet girls. The best for you is
Honyarado near Doshisha University in Kyoto. Stay away
from gaijin [foreigners]. It's like West Berlin.
50% are CIA. Avoid "Jitoku" and even Cid Corman's
"CC's." Associate with Japanese as much as possible.
Forget "sitting" [zazen] at Daitokuji, etc. They - the
mystical gaijin - are all "freeks" as Dianne [Jarreau] calls
such people in the Inscrutable Orient. Japan is a
thoroughly modern country - more so than the
USA but with its most ancient traditions available. Our
house is directly under Sennuji, a Shingon temple
complex. If you are looking for a Shingon sensei inquire
at the University and at Sennuji. The best man I know is at
the mountain center of Koyasan at Soji In - but he is
leaving for the USA. There are many Buddhist
universities, several in Kyoto. The best is near Wakayama
or at Koyasan some 100 kilometers away. These lamas
[such as Trungpa] etc are all frauds. Stay away
from such people & their gaijin. What Benkei?
Yoshitsune's comrade? Some one has been having you on.
I warn you. Above all things avoid hippie gaijin
"mysticism," "aikido" (pure fake), brown rice
"macrobiotics" etc etc Love from us both Kenneth
Learn both Kana [Japanese syllabaries] & a little Kanji
[Chinese characters] and get some language records and a
first year textbook.
On 21 June 1975 Rexroth wrote that a university official had
visited his house, "casing the joint":
I got the impression they would not let you take our place.
Also he made a very bad impression on us--a rude and
burocratic personality. He had two men with him who
seem to be government inspectors, who went about the
place taking notes. They all arrived without warning. He
also questioned me about your daughters and why you did
not mention your wife. I told him you were separated
[actually divorced] because you were teaching at different
schools, but that I knew very little about your present
domestic arrangements. He has a place next door to his
own. I advise you not to take it. I wouldn't want him
watching me. Also, willy nilly, you will be sucked
into the social life of Japanese academia. All Japanese are
square to some degree, even the rock & roll musicians -
but like Orwell's pigs, some are squarer than others -
especially most, but not all, academicians. Remember -
there is NO progressive education in Japan
whatsoever.
Write right away to Gary [Snyder]'s
friend Katagiri Yuzuru who teaches at Seika Jr. College,
is a poet, "official translator" of Bob Dylan, shares our
social attitudes, speaks perfect English. He is your best
guide in Kyoto. Atsumi for Tokyo. Here are some names
(Japanese order). Atsumi Ikuko will be at Antioch in a
few weeks and then around the Great Lakes Poetry circuit
as p. in residence. She is your very best contact & a
person We love very much. If you write to her
immediately you should be able to meet her in the
Midwest... Morita Yasuyo (my secretary, perhaps the very
nicest girl I have ever known. An Angel)... Love
from us both Kenneth
On 11 July 1975 he wrote more about the real Japan:
No, you don't realize how remote
traditional Japan is to most people - and how many people
actively hate it... Almost all Buddhist temples are
associations of combined undertakers & custodians of
national monuments & collect money for every time you
turn around. Buddhist laymen are simply grossly
superstitious. Only an infinitesimal group of scholars have
an intelligent understanding of their religion - due to
influence of the West. Tantric Buddhism is illegal - very-
but can be found in a few village temple monasteries - but
they are certainly not going to admit it to you. The best
place to find the kind of Shingon guru you seek is at Sojo-
in in Kôyasan. Don't go to board at the other temples -
they are just poor hotels.
English is taught as a dead language
and Japanese students are no more capable of speaking or
understanding speech as an American "Latin major"
would be able to get along in ancient Rome. They come to
the first couple of classes & then vanish. Japanese
education is for the purpose of passing examinations.
Very few boys are interested in English or even Japanese
Literature; for girls proficiency in English means a job.
The Manyoshu or Genji are "school work" they had very
small selections of, couldn't understand and totally forgot.
English department heads are idiots who ask you to
"concentrate on their favorite writer" Hawthorne,
Longfellow, or of all people, Edgar Lee Masters...
In the same letter, raging at university officials, one of whom he
called "a typical and a pure cop," he warned me against living in
Hyogo prefecture:
the smoggiest, most congested prefecture in
Kansai...Don't forget the average Japanese worker travels
1 1/2 to 2 hours each way to & from work unless he lives
in an industrial village. The girl in the house above us
teaches in Kobe - beyond your campus of O. U. many
miles. Also - I know no one who teaches 14 hours a week
- besides - they load you with unpaid committee etc work.
Get tough - NOW.
Unlike US students, whose
education has some content & who do not expect to live to
2000 AD and who believe western civilization is dead,
Japanese students are just plain alienated - the Red Army,
the Fang, the Wolf [revolutionary groups] - all preach
anti-theory, anti-books, anti-ideology and spend their
energies killing each other. But they all worship the USA
in its worst aspects, Macdonald's, Col. Sanders, US TV
programs, any and all rock, country
western, Bluegrass in their purest Nashville commercial
forms. Love Kenneth
On 31 July 1975 he continued to warn me against mixing with
other Americans and idealizing Japan:
[Cid] Corman's coffee shop & ice cream parlor is a
hangout for gaijin & gaijin lovers. Jitoku
is worse. Katagiri's brother runs a coffee shop Honyarado
which is better - but all these places crawl with freaks &
CIA - usually the same people. My advice to you is to
associate as much as possible with ordinary Japanese
people in Japanese places. And get a Japanese girlfriend.
We leave Sept 8 by boat from Kobe. Can you come before
that? Don't expect the wrong things of Japan - you
probably know more about Buddhism than all but 1 out of
10,000 Japanese. That actually is too low - 1 out of
100,000 would be more like it. A Japanese would as likely
to seek philosophy from a Buddhist monk as you would
from a "mortician."
I have a long series of poems on the
subject of your last paragraph - but I have no copies.
Thank you for yours. In ideas they resemble mine - but
Morgan - practice "objectivism," make it happen.
Actually - they are good poems. I don't know how, with
the depression & the prohibitive cost of printing, you can
get a book. Carol can't. Where are you? Love, Kenneth
& Carol
The "long series of poems" was The Love Poems of
Marichiko (1978). These ecstatic poems of Buddhist
illumination and disillusionment were offered as translations, but
were actually Rexroth's original creations.
On 1 August 1975 Rexroth wrote me the last letter that I
received in Vermont, for the next month I met him and Carol in
Kyoto. In it he provided me with names of more friends, including
a former student of mine [at the University of California at
Santa Barbara] who I think you met - poet, very hip,
teaches English to businessmen in Tokyo, married to
Japanese girl"--John Solt, editor of One Mind, who
became my best friend in Japan and later a Harvard
doctoral student in Japanese studies. Rexroth went on to
idolize Morita Yasuyo, "my secretary, a very beautiful
girl and a kind of saint - she seems to have no faults
whatever... She also coaches me in Japanese & is
generally helpful... She shares most of our tastes &
attitudes..." And he described the social philosopher
Tsurumi Shunsuke as "Sort of the Chomsky of Japan - but
smarter... He is a good friend of Gary Snyder's and a very
stimulating & extremely well informed conversationalist.
He has left a Kyoto University professorship & lives by
writing. His wife teaches at Seika - with Katagiri. Right
now he is very active in the Kim Chi Ha defense...
Yearning for Japan
Rexroth's remaining letters were sent from Santa Barbara to me
in Japan, where I lived near Osaka University from September, 1975,
until April, 1979 (excepting short visits to the United States). In this
final correspondence, he remained so preoccupied with Japan that he
asked me to arrange a lectureship for him, so he might return to spend
the rest of his life there. Unfortunately, he was overage for Japanese
universities. On 1 February 1976, he wrote:
Dear Morgan - You're one of these guys who doesn't put
his address on his letters but just on the envelope & then
wonders why he doesn't get answers! Carol is well. I seem
to be having mild cardiac-circulatory troubles. Yes I
would like to come back to Japan but I am past the
compulsory retirement age-70 for professors. I would
have to be a special lecturer. Handai [Osaka University]
would be OK, or any place in Kansai. Ask around anyone
you happen to see - R. Fukuda etc. I certainly miss
Yasuyo-chan. Now I am doing The Women Poets of
Japan with Atsumi [The Burning Heart, New
York: Continuum, Seabury, 1977] and I miss Yasuyo for
that, too. I have been writing a fairly long introduction to
the collected essays on Buddhism of Lafcadio Hearn
[The Buddhist Writings of Lafcadio Hearn, Santa
Barbara: Ross-Erikson, 1977]. It is mostly about
Buddhism, not Hearn. I have been trying to make it as
clear and simple as possible.
Yes, you are right about the USA.
After Japan the culture shock is too much. This is the
greatest military despotism since Assyria, governed by
fools & feared and hated by every nation on earth. At a
poetry reading of freaks, in a church, in a petty bourgeois
swing club, there is no escaping homo homini lupus. I
don't want to be part of the collective guilt. I do not have a
male friend in Santa Barbara who is not a foreigner! I
don't know what American men are talking about and I
have nothing to say to them. On that score - as on most
others - Toqueville was certainly right. Of course, all you
have to do is go to Osaka or Kobe or Tokyo and meet the
right Japanese and they are worse. But not everybody. I do
hope you keep out of Jitoku & CC's and gaijin
stews and make some good Japanese friends. I wish I was
35 years younger. I would... change my citizenship...
Atsumi thinks it [USA] all wonderful. And I am sure so
would Yasuyo. Of course they are not involved & don't
see beneath the surface. I wonder what Tania's [Patty
Hurst's] trial will be like. Probably a reply of Brecht's
Galileo. I hope she doesn't involve her friends in
disaster. The whole Japanese-American community has
rallied behind that poor sansei girl [Wendy Yoshimura].
What a country! Faithfully Kenneth
After I wrote Rexroth about my meditating and studying in Zen
and Shingon temples, he responded on 10 April 1976 with some of
his most penetrating comments about Japanese Buddhism:
Dear Morgan - My My - you are certainly becoming more
Buddhist than the Japanese. Yes, you are right - wherever
it is vital in Japan Buddhism is moving beyond
sectarianism to a "synthetic Buddhism" which is very like
Hinayana as imagined by the Rhys Davids [scholars of Sri
Lankan Theravada Buddhism]. Curiously - it is Jôdo
Shinshu [the True Pure Land Sect] which leads in this -
and which is the only congregational religion. The vast
pantheon of Shingon - or of lamaism & Tantrism
generally simply represents stages of personal interior
experience - stages of illumination. Which is what is
meant by "becoming" the bodhisattva or buddha in the
mandala. No - I am not focusing on Hearn. I just had a job
to edit his essays on Buddhism...
Yes - I do wish Fukuda could turn
up a trip to Japan for me this Fall. Perhaps a month of
special lectures. 70 is too old for a regular job in almost
all Japanese universities... The Shiraishi book was
accepted by New Directions. She is in Vancouver by now.
What a goofy woman! Atsumi Ikuko was here for two
weeks and The Women Poets of Japan [The Burning
Heart] is essentially finished. Iku is a typical 35 yr
old Tokyo intellectual. I have NO young women, no
religious, no revolutionary, no love poetry in the modern
section & no one from Kansai!! As you have discovered,
Japanese are commonly extremely narrow in their
interests - they can't even give you directions except for
the car lines they use daily. Yasuyo is a divine exception.
I do wish she would come & stay with us in Santa Barbara
for the summer... All is well with us. Did I tell you my
sickness was a state of shock caused by a new pill I took
for mild high blood pressure? Now I am fine - and so is
Carol. A great revival of jazz & poetry. I have all kinds of
dates this summer. Love from Carol & Kenneth
Rexroth's letter of 7 January 1977 refers to a Poetry Award in
his name given annually to women poets living in Japan. He
contributed money for prizes, Yuzuru Katagiri administered it, and
judges were Katagiri and Sanehide Kodama in 1975, Toru Arima
and I in 1976, Motoo Akiyama and Edith Shiffert in 1977, Katagiri
and John Solt in 1978, Fukunaga and Nicola Geiger in 1979, Kiyoko
Nagase and Rebecca Jennison in 1980, Noriko Ibaraki and Meredith
McKinney in 1981, Kazuko Shiraishi and Edith Shiffert in 1982. (In
each pair, the first judge read poetry in Japanese and the second judge
in English.) At first foreign as well as Japanese women students were
eligible, but after a couple of years awards were given only to
Japanese women, and the meaning of "student" was extended.
Happy New Year.
All goes well here. I have 3 new
books to send you. 100 More Japanese Poems, On
Flower Wreath Hill [Burnaby, British Columbia:
Blackfish Press, 1976], The Silver Swan [Port
Townsend, Washington: Copper Canyon Press, 1976].
The Women Poets of Japan [The Burning Heart]
has gone to the printer. It has been an unusually warm wet
winter - so everything is growing vigorously months in
advance. Carol spends much time gardening. I have been
doing a lot of poetry-jazz concerts with great success. It
seems to be making a comeback. Atsumi, Shiraishi,
Yasuyo were all here on visits... Then, just now Chung
Ling passed through on her way to marry...
I hear you did not attend the Poetry
Award. It is odd. They deduct all expenses - which
Doshisha was to pay - They gave one to a gaijin
last year - and the judges were all men! They were of
course supposed to be women - preferably Shiffert san
and Ibaraki Rin if she still lives in Kansai.
I have an opportunity to tour Japan
for 4 weeks doing Poetry & Jazz. I would come in cherry
blossom time - but I have dates in NY & Mass all April,
and either March or May in Sweden.
No other news. We saw
Kurosawa's 7 Ronin last night, which left me
terribly homesick... Otherwise, for 71, I am well & happy
enough. Love from both of us Kenneth
After I had complained about loneliness, Rexroth wrote on 17
January 1977:
Dear Morgan - what a pity Havelock Ellis has passed to
eternal rest. You must be unique in the history of human
sexuality - the only man who ever went to Japan &
complained about the difficulty of getting laid. Most
gaijin think of the country as existing for no other purpose
- and I don't mean girls & commercial sex...
...I just have now from John san
what they consider the final versions [of translations of
Shiraishi Kazuko's poems, by Rexroth, Carol Tinker, John
Solt, and Morita Yasuyo].
... Did you ever see Kurosawa's "7
Samurai"? We saw it the other night & I keep dreaming
[of]... the woman who turns & calmly walks back in to the
burning building...
Otherwise - I'm busy, writing
poetry, two jazz poetry concerts a month, a tour of
Sweden in March or May (I'm trying to get it postponed
as it conflicts with the beginning of a tour of Upstate NY,
then Cambridge-Boston, then NYC - and then I hope,
Sweden. October all around Japan, stopover in Hong
Kong & Manila, then November around India, stopover in
W. Europe on the way home if I wish. I don't know if I
can take all this at 71... As you doubtless know, and as
Kyoto porno actresses have told me, the Hong Kong
movie colony would make the Manson Family look like
the 5 Little Peppers...
Sure - print the poems [by Rexroth,
Shiraishi, and others] in the Kent [State University]
magazine [Shelly's, a section of which I was
editing] - have them write me for something of mine when
they agree... Too bad you couldn't come [to the Rexroth
Awards ceremony] but it was good that Edith san
[Shiffert] could. It is absurd to have a jury of all men. Do
you know Shiffert san? She is a wonderful woman.
Oldish, but still very beautiful and hip before hip was
invented... Lots of love from us both. I'll send books when
I get some more. Kenneth
In a letter of 1 February 1977 that offered some sexual
counseling, Rexroth's anarchism exploded in a diatribe against
presidential candidates:
Dear Morgan - You are a caution! There are
plenty of girls around Cid Corman's & Honyarado just
dying to meet gaijin poets etc. If [you] fail you
can buy an inflatable woman from any sex shop. They
invented them. Kobe variety is world famous...
What business have people like you
concerning yourself with cheap demagogues [Carter and
Mondale] whom you'd refuse to receive socially? Keep
the good old [Alexander] Berkman house flag flying.
Voltairine de Cleyre lives!
Archetypal Women
When I notified Rexroth that my mother had died during my latest
visit to Michigan, he wrote me on 20 March 1977:
Dear Morgan - of course you have all our sympathy &
condolences - but one can do little except quote the more
intelligent Scriptures... It is now 60 years since my mother
died & her influence is still powerful - possibly as I have
come to build her into a kind of archetype - the most
powerful. She certainly taught me that there is nothing in
life "surpassing the love of women."
All goes well here. I seem to have
recovered from the extreme case of acute prostatitis (E.
coli) without ill effects, even from the immense amount of
medication. I will still be going to Japan in October. (D.
V.) [Deovo lente: God willing.]
In an undated letter sent about 14 April 1977, Rexroth reported:
"A few days ago a letter came from you. I picked up the mail from
our mail box on the way to the grocery. When I got back home your
letter had vanished. I went over the car thoroly & inquired at the two
places I had shopped. Then I waited hoping someone would find it
and put it in a mailbox. It has not showed up - this was the Saturday
before Easter." A Japanese woman had complained to him that
"other people have entered her heart with dirty shoes. All the
Japanese women have tatami floored hearts. If it's not too much
bother, would you repeat the substance of your air letter which
arrived the day before Easter? All is quiet here."
In his last years, his lifelong preoccupation with the archetypal
woman, modeled on his mother, intensified in poetry and letters, and
his condemnation of most men increased. For instance, after I had
written him about a faculty party, he replied on 1 May 1977:
I NEVER go to those all male Japanese parties. They
made me want to take a plane to civilization right then.
Like most Japanese women, I find Japanese men mostly
sickening. Why do you persist in believing that Japanese
women are innocent?
...I no longer know anyone in
English literary-academic circles. Mottram is certainly the
best, but I don't know him. Why don't you write him,
offer to exchange books and tell him of the job [an
opening at Osaka University]? My principle problem now
is getting to Japan and staying there... But I am 71 1/2. My
health is far better - all that was wrong was a severe acute
prostatitis. I canceled my trip East - a loss of about $7500
- but impossible while I was ill. Also I missed Chung
Ling, whom I will probably never see again.
All my dreams come true too late.
No news. Life goes by like a mouse, not rustling the grass.
Do you have my last 3 books - 100 More Japanese
Poems, On Flower Wreath Hill, The Silver Swan? Let
me know. Love to you and good luck with your
"westernized" lady. My only comment on that is, Why go
to Japan? Does she have dyed hair? French dresses?
Love Kensan
No, Keiko Matsui did not have dyed hair or French dresses, and
when Rexroth met her on his next visit to Japan, in 1978, he was so
enchanted that he whispered to me, "You will never find such
devotion like hers in America! Marry her right away!" With his
blessing, Keiko and I were soon engaged, but were married at the
Heian Shrine in Kyoto until after Rexroth and Carol had returned to
Santa Barbara.
Meanwhile, on 12 June 1977 he had written:
Dear Morgan - Thank you very much for the clipping
about Kiku Yamada. I met her in Paris & have always
wondered what happened to her. There was no hint in her
conversation that she had ever had such troubles. She was
in fact a very beautiful middle aged woman. Also - she
was friends with a much younger woman who was
traveling about Europe trying to get artists, writers, etc
especially people of the non-Stalinist Left, to visit Japan at
government expense. At that point I wasn't able to go. She
was the daughter of the Minister of Labor, immensely rich
and fabulously beautiful. No one remembers her.
Yes, I have read [Yosano] Akiko's
poem [against the Russo-Japanese War]. It is mentioned
in Japanese Women Poets, and has been
translated several times...
Japanese consider the discussion of
"deep" subjects bad manners, haven't you found that out?
Nobody takes Western philosophy seriously ("Dekahe"
for Descartes, Kant, Hegel) except professors paid to
teach it. Modern Japanese philosophy is elementary, as
speculative profound insight Kôbo Daishi is
childish and commonplace. It's like US working stiffs
who consider talk about politics or religion taboo.
I think you'll find Sri Lanka, like
India, very puritanical & stuffy. At least you'll
find women who will talk freely, as equals. YES - here is
permission to reprint Shiraishi's "America" [his
translation, in Shelly's]. NOW I have GOT to get
some sort of job in Japan. The second Fulbright doesn't
seem at all likely. I wrote Fukuda about you - could you
reciprocate? He seems to be the final authority on who to
import from the USA. My friends are George Saito,
Kodama Sanehide, Yuzuru [Katagiri], Suwa Yu, R.
Fukuda, T. Nihikura etc. Somewhere I should find
somebody willing to ask me over for a series of lectures...
Lots of love Kenneth
Your book [Dark Summer, poems, Milwaukee:
Morgan Press, 1977] just arrived. Very beautiful!
Though Rexroth had reservations about the speculations of
Kôbo Daishi (Kûkai), the founder of Japanese Shingon
(Tantric) Buddhism in the early ninth century, he praised his
philosophical poetry in conversations with me and urged me to
translate it with my friend Hiroshi Murakami . I tried to find Rexroth
a teaching position, without success, but he was able to arrange a
lecture tour in 1978. On 1 January 1978 he wrote from Santa Barbara
about The Communes of Japan, by Kusakari Zenzo, Michael
M. Steinbach, and Moshe Matsuba (1979), which I had sent him:
Dear Morgan - Forgive me. I have delayed answering
because 1) I was not sure when I might come to Japan 2) I
was waiting for the Love Poems of Marichiko to
be ready for a Christmas gift (I discover it hasn't even
been set!)... and I have been depressed... And here it is
already the Year of the Horse... I don't think a full time
teaching job is anything I could handle. I need a special
lectureship - like the Regents Lectures at the UC
schools...
Thank you very much for the book
on Japanese communes. He (or they) don't know much
about the yamabushi & Tenri groups - Sensei and his
People is very good on the latter. And the Zionist bias
is simply incredible. They seem to think communalism
was invented by the Kibbutzem. I may come to Japan in
sakura [cherry blossom] time - which would
mean staying into mildew time & the incredible Japanese
summer. I wish I could spend April, then come back in the
Autumn, but I could not afford it. No other news. We had
a good Xmas & New Year. New Year's eve in meditation
at the Vedanta Temple [in Santa Barbara]. (The Buddhist
Temple here is Jôdo shinshu [Pure Land] -
a little like midwest Protestantism). I've had some very
successful concerts over the state - 8 piece orchestra
including koto & shakahachi. On Flower Wreath
Hill has evolved into quite a musical composition.
Trouble is - I make no money - moving the band out of
LA County means $15 a musician! In SF I worked with
shakuhachi & koto alone. Lots of love from us
both Kenneth
During such a performance at the University of Hawaii, where
Rexroth and I met during one of my trips to Michigan, the Japanese
musicians had trouble coordinating with his reading of the poetry. On
the other hand, performances in California of his Chinese translations
set to Chinese music were certainly the finest combinations of music
and poetry that I have ever heard.
Buddha Worlds
After I had sent Rexroth some of my students' translations from
Japanese into English, he was most appreciative of versions of poems
from Chieko's Sky by Kotaro Takamura, about the poet's
mad wife. On 10 February 1978 Rexroth wrote: "Tell your student
who did the Chieko poem that those are among my favorite 20th
century poems - in any language. I will send her my translation of it
as soon as I get around to it..." He then wondered whether, during his
next visit to Japan, he would live in the ancient farmhouse that he and
Carol had previously rented in Kyoto or, as I suggested, with me in
Osaka. I had recommended a former student as his interpreter-guide.
He wrote: "It is very good of you to offer me your place - and a
young lady as what used to be called "stick girl" (like a blind man's
stick) before it became pejorative..." He then blasted Zen, which I
had been practicing:
Zen is the religion of the military caste, the great rich - e.
g. the Nomura brothers are all Zen monks, Ruth Sazaki
was a foolish Chicago millionairess - the so-called Black
Dragons, and gaijin hippies. Actually, there is
going on in Japan a sudden revival of Theravada
Buddhism, for centuries known only to scholars, and this
is attracting youth interested in religion. It was his Zenism
that got Snyder... boycotted by Japanese poets until he
formed his own "movement" - the harijan...
Shinshu [the True Pure Land Sect] has become a sort of
"synthetic Buddhism" with strong emphasis on Shaka
[Shakyamuni]. I prefer Kôyasan. There are infinity
to the power of infinity Buddha worlds. See you soon.
March is best. Love Kenneth
When Kenneth and Carol came to Osaka that spring, they
stayed with me for several weeks, except for trips around Japan and
other Asian countries. I gave readings and lectures with him at
American Centers in Osaka and Sapporo. He and Carol gave Keiko
and me Furuta Soichi's translation of Chieko's Sky (Tokyo:
Kodansha, 1978) as an engagement present. During this visit,
Kenneth was the happiest that I had ever known him to be, telling
jokes and anecdotes of his adventurous life, talking endlessly about
Japan, and singing songs late into the night. He blew up at me only
once--because as a Buddhist I did not believe in Evil, which I saw as
a form of ignorance. "There are evil men in this world," he
proclaimed, "destroying essential conditions of life for all of us. They
are not just ignorant. They know exactly what they are doing. They
are destroying the world." This kind of prophetic truth, in poems as
in talk, sent shivers through my spine. But a few minutes later we
were laughing together again.
Despite Rexroth's tough morality, his worldly wisdom sometimes
allowed him to be congenial with people whose work or ideas were
anathema to him. After giving a poetry reading with him in an
American Center in Japan, I was horrified to overhear one of the
officials talk about being in the C. I. A. before moving to the State
Department. I expected Rexroth to denounce this cut-throat, but he
just laughed at my naiveté, telling me that the man was probably still
in the C. I. A., along with other civilized people who were discussing
Japanese art with us. He had lofty principles, but also an uncanny
way of communicating with people despite radical disagreements--to
a point, before exploding.
Though Rexroth confided in me, with tears welling up in his
eyes, that he wanted to die in Japan, he nevertheless had to return to
America, which he detested. Later, after Keiko and I were married at
the Heian Shrine in Kyoto, he invited us, in his letter of 3 February
1979, to visit Carol and himself in Santa Barbara:
Of course you are welcome to stay with us. But I think
you have forgotten. I am the worst possible person to
arrange a reading at UCSB [University of California at
Santa Barbara]. I'll do what I can - and at SB City
College... DON'T mention my name, or that you've
written a book on me. We can of course arrange a small
private, invitational reading at our home... I'm glad all
goes well with you - but I can't imagine anyone
voluntarily leaving Japan for this bankrupt police state.
Montri Umavijani [the leading poet
of Thailand] is due in Tokyo in a few days. You can
probably reach him through John Solt. He'd like to meet
you, Yasuyo & Katagiri.
Can you send me SOONEST the
little Japanese book of Marichiko and the
romaji [the Japanese rendered in English letters].
Mine has been stolen... We [he and Katagiri] plan a face-
en-face edition. Love to you & Keiko
from me and Carol
Kenneth
Katagiri's Japanese translation of Rexroth's Marichiko
poems appeared in 1984. Actually my reading was held at Ross-
Erikson's, Rexroth's Santa Barbara publisher. With Rexroth, Carol,
and a houseful of other writers attending, I presented slides of Kôya-
san monastery, Rexroth's spiritual home in Japan, along with the
English versions of Kûkai's "Poems That Sing Ten Images"
that Hiroshi Murakami and I had done with his encouragement and
that were eventually published in our book, Tantric Poetry of
K&ucurc;kai (Kôbo Daishi): Japan's Buddhist Saint
(1982 and 1986).
Rexroth wrote his last letter to me on 15 March 1979, focusing
on Buddhist themes in his poetry in response to a draft of my essay,
"Rexroth's Dharma," which I had sent him and which eventually
appeared, corrected, in For Rexroth, the Festscrift
edited by Geoffrey Gardner in 1980. Rexroth and I conversed on the
telephone, and Keiko and I visited him a few days before his death on
6 June 1982. His final letter is a remarkably succinct statement of his
central visionary philosophy:
Dear Morgan & Keiko - Your letters are indefinite about
when you will arrive in SB... When actually will you be in
SB and for how long? I can't arrange a poetry
reading until I know. Do you want a koto player?
Thank you for the essay. The long
poems are all visionary and have much the same
philosophy. The Phoenix and the Tortoise was
written during the Pacific War and is strung on the
Hyakunin Isshu - ending with the same
illumination. It is wrong to call Dainichi Nyorai the Great
Sun Buddha - true - that is literal - but he is the Unlimited
Illumination. Marichi-ten is not a "sex goddess" - but the
first light of dawn, Myogo the morning star,
which is why the calligraphy on the cover [of The
Morning Star]. It was also the name of Yosano
Akiko's magazine. Marichiko constantly makes
comparisons of herself & lover and Marishi-ten &
Dainichi. The poem "breaks" at the moments of hubris,
watching the fiery [character for "great"] from the
Kamogawa Bridge and at the Shizoka Gozen poem, where
she realizes that illumination has been corrupted by
hubris. It is the same plot as my plays -- except
Iphigenia[in Beyond the Mountains]. I hope
you've finished the Kûkai poems. There is
a priest at Sojo in Kôyasan, who could have given
you advice. Lots of love to you both.
Kenneth
Of course your friends are welcome
Much as I love and honor the work of Ginsberg, Levertov, Bly,
Snyder, and other American poets who became prominent in the
1950s, Rexroth's has meant the most to me. His values, personal,
libertarian, ecological, mystical, philosophical, long suppressed and
ignored in the academy, are now very much alive in the diversity of
American poetry. His poems and prose of pain and joy, of universal
liberation and illumination, will continue to change hearts, minds, and
maybe the world a little. Like Pound, Rexroth was a tragic hero of
poetry; but unlike Pound, whose aesthetic prowess and Confucian
ethic could not overcome his fascist proclivities, Rexroth left us
poetry and prose of universal liberation.
Rexroth
crept out
slow to speak
as an ancient tortoise
from whose calligraphic shell
the Chinese told the future.
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Copyright © 2000 by Morgan Gibson
Light and Dust Anthology of Poetry
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