This is a companion volume to the Collected Shorter Poems of Kenneth
Rexroth which was published in 1967. All of the long poems written over
the past forty years are included: The Homestead Called Damascus
(1920-25), A Prolegomenon to a Theodicy (1925-27), The Phoenix and the
Tortoise (1940-44), The Dragon and the Unicorn (1944-50) and The Heart's
Garden, The Garden's Heart (1967-68). As we read the long poems together
and in sequence we can see that Rexroth is a philosophical poet of
consequence who offers us a comprehensive system of values based on the
realization of the ethical mysticism of universal responsibility. He is
concerned, above all, with process: the movement from the Dual to the
Other. I have tried, Rexroth writes, to embody in verse the belief that
the only valid conservation of value lies in the assumption of unlimited
liability, the supernatural identification of the self with the tragic
unity of creative process. I hope I have made it clear that the self
does not do this by an act of will, by sheer assertion. He who would
save his life must lose it.