Carl Rakosi, 1903 - 2004
Tuesday June 29, 2004
from John Tranter at Jacket Magazine:
“Tom Devaney writes with this sad news: Poet Carl Rakosi died on Friday afternoon June 25 at the age of 100, after a series of strokes, in his home in San Francisco. He was with his family and they were reading Mark Twain and listening to music when he died.
“Jen Hofer writes that Carl’s last words, or nearly-last words were these: ‘A hospice worker had come by in the morning to set things up with them and she was asking Carl if he knew what day it was (he didn’t); or what month (he thought it was September); or what year (he didn’t know); and then she asked him who the president is. He hesitated and Barbara (his daughter) was thinking that maybe he didn’t know that either, but after a pause he said ‘Bush — that bastard!’”
from The Guardian:
“A protégé of Ezra Pound and member of the Objectivists in the 1930s,
he took a 30-year break from poetry to work as a psychotherapist...” But Rakosi remained an activist in poetry: Three last poems have just appeared in Flashpoint #7 under the heading “Carl Rakosi at 100,” and they are spare & pointed commentaries on the political process.
Related resources:
More on Carl Rakosi
“Count the Ways,” in which Gary Glazner’s slam take-off on Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s famous sonnet gives us reason to send you to EBB & the American Objectivists, including Rakosi
“Tom Devaney writes with this sad news: Poet Carl Rakosi died on Friday afternoon June 25 at the age of 100, after a series of strokes, in his home in San Francisco. He was with his family and they were reading Mark Twain and listening to music when he died.
“Jen Hofer writes that Carl’s last words, or nearly-last words were these: ‘A hospice worker had come by in the morning to set things up with them and she was asking Carl if he knew what day it was (he didn’t); or what month (he thought it was September); or what year (he didn’t know); and then she asked him who the president is. He hesitated and Barbara (his daughter) was thinking that maybe he didn’t know that either, but after a pause he said ‘Bush — that bastard!’”
from The Guardian:
“A protégé of Ezra Pound and member of the Objectivists in the 1930s,
he took a 30-year break from poetry to work as a psychotherapist...” But Rakosi remained an activist in poetry: Three last poems have just appeared in Flashpoint #7 under the heading “Carl Rakosi at 100,” and they are spare & pointed commentaries on the political process.
Related resources:
More on Carl Rakosi
“Count the Ways,” in which Gary Glazner’s slam take-off on Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s famous sonnet gives us reason to send you to EBB & the American Objectivists, including Rakosi
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