The Godfather: Kenneth Rexroth

Little remembered today, Kenneth Rexroth was a major influence on the art world through the middle of the twentieth century, especially in San Francisco.  In a fittingly Fortean way, he both recurs throughout the history of Forteanism and is peripheral to the subject.  He never wrote directly about Forteanism, and his work shows no influence from Fort.  But, it is impossible to write about the development of Forteanism without referencing him.

Rexroth was born in South Bend Indiana in 1905.  He was raised in a family that had extensive ties to socialism and had been involved in abolitionist movements, including working on the Underground Railroad.  These would have significant effects on Rexroth throughout his life.

His father, Charles Rexroth, had originally intended to become a doctor, but never finished his schooling and instead feel into pharmaceutical sales.  If socialism was one influence on Rexroth, then his father’s alcoholism and philandering was another, causing drastic shifts in the family’s fortune—from mansions to shared rooms—and putting the boy into untenable situations, as when the young Rexroth was forced to live with his paternal grandmother, who was senile and beat him mercilessly for no reason.  (Rexroth would, in turn, become abusive.)  Kenneth was close to his mother, Delia, but she had many illnesses and eventually died in 1916, when he was about eleven.  (His father died two years later.)