Regional Oral History Office University of California The Bancroft Library Berkeley, California Carl Rakosi A CENTURY IN THE POETIC EYE: CARL RAKOSI ON POETRY, PSYCHOLOGY, AND WORLD AFFAIRS IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY Interviews conducted by Kimberly Bird in 2002 Copyright © 2005 by The Regents of the University of California Since 1954 the Regional Oral History Office has been interviewing leading participants in or well-placed witnesses to major events in the development of Northern California, the West, and the nation. Oral History is a method of collecting historical information through tape-recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. The tape recording is transcribed, lightly edited for continuity and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewee. The corrected manuscript is bound with photographs and illustrative materials and placed in The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, and in other research collections for scholarly use. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account, offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is reflective, partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ********************************* All uses of this manuscript are covered by a legal agreement between The Regents of the University of California and the estate of Carl Rakosi, dated May 27, 2005. The manuscript is thereby made available for research purposes. All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to The Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley. No part of the manuscript may be quoted for publication without the written permission of the Director of The Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley. Requests for permission to quote for publication should be addressed to the Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, Mail Code 6000, University of California, Berkeley, 94720-6000, and should include identification of the specific passages to be quoted, anticipated use of the passages, and identification of the user. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Carl Rakosi, “A Century in the Poetic Eye: Carl Rakosi on Poetry, Psychology, and World Affairs in the Twentieth Century,” conducted by Kim Bird 2002, Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 2005. Copy No. _______ Carl Rakosi at his 100th birthday party, November 7, 2003. Photo courtesy of Marylin Kane and the estate of Carl Rakosi. TABLE OF CONTENTS -- CARL RAKOSI INTERVIEW HISTORY . .i Interview 1: July 30, 2002. 1 FAMILY AND YOUTH Rakosi’s early memories; mother’s melancholia and divorce; childhood in Baja, Hungary; father’s family background; father emigrates to US; travels to US with stepmother; class consciousness; return to Baja as adult; Hungarian Jews during Holocaust; visit to Israel; father’s socialism; school experience in Gary, Indiana; family name change; brother Lester; work in factory at age sixteen; high school in Kenosha, Wisconsin; love of music; assimilation as All-American boy Interview 2: August 19, 2002 . 21 COLLEGE EXPERIENCE University of Chicago; University of Wisconsin; progressive philosophy at Wisconsin; student literary magazine; Kenneth Fearing, Zona Gale, Margery Latimer, Leon Serabian Herald; Fearing’s family background; prevalence of anti-Semitism in period; anti- Semitic writers: Eliot, Pound, cummings; assimilation of Hungarian Jews; Jewish community of Kenosha, Wisconsin EARLY POETRY AND WORK EXPERIENCE First published poetry; relationship with Margery Latimer; meeting Jane Heap at Little Review; social work for Jewish Board of Guardians; Kid-Dropper gang; influences: Keats, Shakespeare, Elizabethan dramatists; “posturing” in early poetry; reads “Plein- Air”; “Plein-Air” as Objectivist poetry; Edward Arlington Robinson’s influence on Fearing; difficulty of writing political poetry; opinion of Muriel Rukeyser; Fearing’s cynicism; ease of publishing poetry today vs. 1930s Interview 3: August 26, 2002 . 41 SOCIAL WORK AND GRADUATE STUDIES Difference between Midwest and California cultures; love of San Francisco; life in New Orleans, 1935-37; work at Federal Transit Bureau; training of social workers in 1920s and ‘30s; entering social work at Western Reserve University; moving to New York; work at Jewish Board of Guardians; essential characteristics of social worker; social work with youth gangs PSYCHOLOGY Freudian psychology; psychology of Otto Rank; practical vs. theoretical psychology in social work; opinion of Freud and Rank as writers; Rank’s relationship with Anais Nin CAREER AS SOCIAL WORKER AND WRITER Life in Greenwich Village; meeting Aaron Copland; losing money at three-card monte; writing community in Greenwich Village; return to Madison for graduate work; work at Milwaukee Electric Railway and Light Company; searching for career that will allow time for writing; teaching English at University of Texas; trying law school, medical school; job at Bloomingdale’s; first encountering gay man POLITICAL EXPERIENCE Joins Communist Party at Leon Herald’s urging; repelled by dogma, leaves Party; opinion of communism and Russian Revolution; opinion of Russian writers; dances in Harlem; interest in black writers Interview 4: September 4, 2002 . 61 THE GREAT DEPRESSION Mood of country during Depression; socialist and Communist clubs; social work during Depression; opinion of Franklin Roosevelt; experience riding the rails OBJECTIVISTS AND OTHER POETS “Americana” poems; Objectivist poets; history of Poetry magazine; Objectivist movement; William Carlos Williams, Wallace Stevens, Marianne Moore’s opinion of Rakoski’s work; psychology of the poet; Jewishness of Objectivist poets; other characteristics of Objectivists; Ezra Pound’s anti-Semitism; Allen Ginsberg’s courage Interview 5: September 12, 2002 . 81 Significance of September 11 attack on World Trade Center; World War II and Spanish Civil War; League of American Writers THE OBJECTIVISTS Personal characteristics of Objectivist poets; Reznikoff, Oppen, Zukofsky; characteristics of Objectivists’ poetry; opinion of Lorine Niedecker; personal influence on Zukofsky; meeting and marrying Leah Interview 6: September 18, 2002 . 99 Zukofsky not leader of Objectivists; elegy to George Oppen; Reznikoff’s “Testimony” and “Holocaust”; Conference on American Objectivists, Royaumont, September 1989; debating Charles Bernstein on Reznikoff’s work; Language Poets’ connection to Objectivists MODERN AND POST-MODERN POETRY Twentieth-century preference for long poems over short; opinion of rap and slam poetry; Ann Waldman’s performance poetry; Naropa University; Robert Duncan; status of poetry in Europe vs. America; the poetic eye; social impact of poetry; future of publishing poetry -- print and Internet; lyrical and meditative poems; stopping writing poetry [1939]; social work as a profession Interview 7: September 25, 2002 . 119 FAMILY BACKGROUND IN HUNGARY Assimilation of Hungarian Jews; social differences among Jewish immigrants to US: Hungarian Jews; Russian Jews; German and Polish Jews; sense of Jewishness among immigrants; Rakosi’s agnosticism vs. Jewish identity SOCIAL WORK Characteristics of Jewish social work agencies; Jewish gangsters; social work in Boston in 1920s; work for Jewish Family and Children’s Services in New York; theory vs. practice in social work AMERICAN SOCIETY AFTER WWII Social characteristics of post-WWII Jewish refugees; mother’s difficulty writing English; mother’s courage after father’s death; parents’ friends and few pleasures; Holocaust, diminution of American anti-Semitism ZIONISM, ISRAEL, JEWISHNESS Early support for Zionism; opinion of modern Israel, Israeli-Palestinian conflict Interview 8: October 2, 2002. 135 Hungarian Jewish humor; Rakosi’s Marxism compared to Hobsbawm’s; Jews in Palestine terrorists POETS AND POETRY Sincerity and artifice in poetry; honesty of Objectivist poetry; Niedecker; Reznikoff; Oppen; Zukofsky compared to Pound; universality of great poetry; architecture compared to poetry as art form; value of anonymity to poet; opinion of Poet Laureate position; opinion of Amiri Baraka as poet and activist; abhorrence of academic theorizing and love of philosophy Interview 9: October 7, 2002. 151 PLAYWRIGHTS AND PLAYS TV adaptation of The Forsyte Saga; opinion of Berkeley Repertory Theatre; favorite playwrights: Miller, Stoppard; similarity and differences between plays and poetry; abstraction in painting WRITERS AND WRITING Friendship with writers: Paul Auster, George Evans, August Kleinzahler; dinner with Jorge Luis Borges; discussion of symbolism; break in Rakosi’s career and return to writing; opinion of Beats; Allen Ginsberg a “practical guy”; Charles Olson and Black Mountain School POST-WWII POLITICS Literary climate under McCarthyism; Army-McCarthy hearings; disenchantment with Russian Communism; Objectivists’ influence on 1960s poets; lack of political involvement in 1950s and 1960s; political trends in US today Interview 10: October 14, 2002. 169 Attitudes to old age in China, US, Europe SOCIETY AND THE ARTS Respect for the arts; poverty of artists; role of arts in society; National Endowment for the Arts grants; effect of Internet on poetry scene; epigrammatic style; prose writing; collected poems not chronological;