The Beat Generation
With Rexroth acting as master of ceremonies, Allen Ginsberg, Philip Lamantia, Michael McClure, Gary Snyder, and Philip Whalen read at the famous poetry-reading at the Six Gallery in San Francisco on October 7, 1955. Rexroth later served as a defense witness at Ginsberg's obscenity trial concerning the event. Rexroth had previously sent Ginsberg (new in the Bay Area) to meet Snyder, and was thus responsible for their friendship. Lawrence Ferlinghetti named Rexroth as one of his own mentors.
Rexroth was eventually critical of the Beat movement. Years after the Six Gallery reading, TIME magazine referred to him as "Father of the Beats." To this he replied, "an entomologist is not a bug."
Rexroth appears in Jack Kerouac's novel The Dharma Bums as the character Reinhold Cacoethes.
Read more about this topic: Kenneth Rexroth
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