"Did you know I staged the first performance in America of At the Hawk's Well?"
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A casual flex dressed up as small talk, Rexroth's line works because it turns cultural history into a personal anecdote. "Did you know" is the soft-entry tactic of someone who already knows the answer will sound impressive; it invites you to be properly surprised while pretending the surprise is incidental. The brag is real, but it's also a kind of manifesto: I wasn't just writing poems, I was moving the machinery of culture.
The name-drop matters. At the Hawk's Well is Yeats at his most stylized, ritualistic, and defiantly anti-commercial - a "Noh-influenced" experiment that asks audiences to meet art on unfamiliar terms. Claiming the first American performance isn't about ticket stubs; it's about positioning himself as a bridge between modernist Europe and an American scene still trying to decide whether it wanted mass entertainment or serious avant-garde theater. Rexroth, a poet with anarchist sympathies and a taste for the cosmopolitan, frames himself as curator, impresario, and instigator.
Subtext: legitimacy. In mid-century American letters, prestige is often accumulated not only through masterpieces but through proximity, access, and firsts. Rexroth is quietly asserting he belonged in the room where new art arrived, and that he helped open the door. It's also a jab at cultural amnesia. If you didn't know, the culture hasn't been keeping score - so he will.
The name-drop matters. At the Hawk's Well is Yeats at his most stylized, ritualistic, and defiantly anti-commercial - a "Noh-influenced" experiment that asks audiences to meet art on unfamiliar terms. Claiming the first American performance isn't about ticket stubs; it's about positioning himself as a bridge between modernist Europe and an American scene still trying to decide whether it wanted mass entertainment or serious avant-garde theater. Rexroth, a poet with anarchist sympathies and a taste for the cosmopolitan, frames himself as curator, impresario, and instigator.
Subtext: legitimacy. In mid-century American letters, prestige is often accumulated not only through masterpieces but through proximity, access, and firsts. Rexroth is quietly asserting he belonged in the room where new art arrived, and that he helped open the door. It's also a jab at cultural amnesia. If you didn't know, the culture hasn't been keeping score - so he will.
Quote Details
| Topic | Art |
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