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American poet (1905–1982)

Kenneth Charles Marion Rexroth (December 22, 1905 – June 6, 1982) was an American poet, translator, and critical essayist. He is regarded as a central figure in the San Francisco Renaissance, and paved the groundwork for the movement. Although he did not consider himself to be a Beat poet, and disliked the association, he was dubbed the "Father of the Beats" by Time magazine.

Rexroth was born Kenneth Charles Marion Rexroth in South Bend, Indiana, the son of Charles Rexroth, a pharmaceuticals salesman, and Delia Reed. His childhood was troubled by his father's alcoholism and his mother's chronic illness. His mother died in 1916 and his father in 1919, after which he went to live with his aunt in Chicago and enrolled in the Art Institute of Chicago. At age 19, he hitchhiked across the country, taking odd jobs and working a stint as a Forest Service trail crew hand, cook and packer at the Marblemount Ranger Station in the Pacific Northwest.

In the 1930s, Rexroth was associated with the Objectivists, a largely New York group gathered around Louis Zukofsky and George Oppen. He was included in the 1931 issue of Poetry magazine dedicated to Objectivist poetry, and in the 1932 An “Objectivists” Anthology. Much of Rexroth's work can be classified as "erotic" or "love poetry", given his deep fascination with transcendent love. According to Hamill and Kleiner, "nowhere is Rexroth's verse more fully realized than in his erotic poetry". With The Love Poems of Marichiko, Rexroth claimed to have translated the poetry of a contemporary, "young Japanese woman poet", but it was later disclosed that he was the author, and he gained critical recognition for having conveyed so authentically the feelings of someone of another gender and culture. Linda Hamalian, his biographer, suggests that, "translating the work of women poets from China and Japan reveals a transformation of both heart and mind". Rexroth was eventually critical of the Beat movement. Years after the Six Gallery reading, Time referred to him as "Father of the Beats.

As a young man in Chicago, Rexroth was involved with the anarchist movement and was active in the IWW. Rexroth, a pacifist, was a conscientious objector during World War II.