The definitive volume of Rexroth's poetry now available in paperback.

The book is a close reading of English translations of over 400 classical Chinese poems by Kenneth Rexroth, an American eco-poet, translator, sinologist, and environmentalist. This study finds that the ecological dimension can provide a new description and explanation for Rexroth’s text selection, translation strategies, and translation character, giving a “green” interpretation of his translations. Due to various sources of Rexroth’s ecological worldview from East and West, Rexroth’s translation presents an ecological character, and the result of his interpretation is more of a cross-cultural ecopoetic rewriting and construction. This is related to several of his ideas: “ecopoetics of selfless imagism”, “aesthetics of relinquishment”, wilderness experience, “sense of place”, material eco-views, ideas of ecological utopia “the community of love” and others. It is also influenced by the historical context, cultural trends, and social reality: the eco-crisis and the rise of ecological movements at that time. Ecocriticism, an analysis approach which focuses on the human-nature relationship embodied in literary texts or other texts and cultural products, helps to delve into the ecopoetic dimension of Rexroth’s translation of classical Chinese poems, to explore his thoughts on the human-nature relationship represented and embodied in translation, to reread his translations from a “green” perspective, and to reveal the eco-value of his translations in contemporary times.

"Rexroth's most notable work, Iowa, is a series of dream-like and poetic images.Each seemingly candid and liquid composition includes a soft focus and vignette, characteristic qualities of Diana camera images. [...] The Iowa series subconsciously expresses Rexroth's childhood memories of visiting family in Iowa. Growing up in the suburbs of Arlington, Virginia, she was captivated by the exotic summer landscapes of Iowa. Although the influence of her memories is present, Rexroth refers to Iowa as a hallucinatory state of mind rather than a concrete geographic location of personal sentiment. She describes Iowa as 'conceived of as a kind of psychic journey from one emotional mood to the next-- a maturation process. It all happens in a place which is very exotic.' In the introduction to the book, Mark L. Power describes this work as 'Sunny Iowa was transformed by memory into a dark Iowa with "a real feeling of melancholy." [...]"