Carl Rakosi

Softcover, 92 pages ISBN: 0-87685-250-9 1971, $9.95   Ere-Voice by Carl Rakosi “Rakosi is a major poet, one whom the Beat Generation writers read and admired for his unadorned presentation of objective reality.'' —Lawrence Ferlinghetti In his first collection of poetry since Amulet (1967), Carl Rakosi again probes the minutiae of everyday experience, expressing, as one reviewer has put it, and attentiveness "to the ordinary until the ordinary ceases to be so. . . ." But the poetic voice — wiser and more mature, yet no less humorous or lyrical — now addresses itself with greater frequency to public issues. Nevertheless, Ere-Voice is not weighted exclusively with the poetry of social protest in its usual sense. For in his own words, Rakosi — a leading member of the Objectivist Group that included, among others, Louis Zukofsky, Charles Reznikoff and George Oppen — seeks primarily "to present objects in their most essential reality and to make of each poem an object. . . meaning by this, obviously, the opposite of a subject; the opposite, in other words, of all forms of personal vagueness; of loose bowels and streaming, sometimes screaming, consciousness." Softcover, 88 pages ISBN: 0-87685-248-7 1967, $9.95   Amulet: Poems by Carl Rakosi For the new generation of poetry readers the work of Carl Rakosi will be an exciting discovery. Rakosi was well known in the Thirties, a leading member of the Objectivist Group, which also included William Carlos Williams, Louis Zukofsky, Charles Reznikoff, and George Oppen. New Directions published his Poems in 1941. Then, to the great disappointment of his admirers, Rakosi stopped writing; he had become disillusioned with the state of our society and felt there was no place in it for a poet. The world seems little better off today, but at least we can be grateful that Rakosi began to write poetry again three years ago and has now given us this selection from his poems, old and new. Rakosi's poetry has affinities with that of the other Objectivisits, but his voice is very much his own. His lines have distinctive tone and finish, deriving in part from a buoyant and ironic wit, in part from a rather unexpected vocabulary. Born in Berlin, educated in Hungary and the American Middle West, Rakosi studied both law and medicine, and brought to his work a unique, fresh, almost gnomic perception. "How good it is to have these beautiful poems available at last! Now no-one can say any more, 'Whatever happened to Carl Rakosi?' Here he is, very much alive and kicking." — Denise Levertov