Carl Rakosi (November 6, 1903 – June 25, 2004) was the last surviving member of the original group of poets who were given the rubric

Objectivist Objectivism is a philosophical system developed by Russian-American writer and philosopher Ayn Rand. She described it as "the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement ...

. He was still publishing and performing his poetry well into his 90s.

Early life

Rakosi was born in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

and lived there and in

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...

until 1910, when he moved to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

to live with his father and stepmother. His father was a jeweler and watchmaker in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

and later in

Gary Gary may refer to: *Gary (given name), a common masculine given name, including a list of people and fictional characters with the name *Gary, Indiana, the largest city named Gary Places ;Iran *Gary, Iran, Sistan and Baluchestan Province ;Unit ...

Indiana Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...

. The family lived in semi-poverty but contrived to send him to the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

and then to the

University of Wisconsin–Madison A university () is an educational institution, institution of higher education, higher (or Tertiary education, tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. Universities ty ...

. During his time studying at the university level, he started writing poetry. On graduating, he worked for a time as a social worker, then returned to college to study psychology. At this time, he changed his name to Callman Rawley because he felt he stood a better chance of being employed if he had a more American-sounding name. After a spell as a psychologist and teacher, he returned to social work for the rest of his working life.

Early writings

At the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Rakosi edited the ''Wisconsin Literary Magazine''. His own poetry at this stage was influenced by

W. B. Yeats William Butler Yeats (13 June 186528 January 1939) was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and became a pillar of the Irish liter ...

Wallace Stevens Wallace Stevens (October 2, 1879 – August 2, 1955) was an American modernist poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, educated at Harvard and then New York Law School, and spent most of his life working as an executive for an insurance compa ...

, and

E. E. Cummings Edward Estlin Cummings, who was also known as E. E. Cummings, e. e. cummings and e e cummings (October 14, 1894 - September 3, 1962), was an American poet, painter, essayist, author and playwright. He wrote approximately 2,900 poems, two autobi ...

. He also started reading William Carlos Williams and

T. S. Eliot Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 18884 January 1965) was a poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic and editor.Bush, Ronald. "T. S. Eliot's Life and Career", in John A Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (eds), ''American National Biogr ...

. By 1925, he was publishing poems in ''The Little Review'' and ''Nation''.

Pound and the Objectivists

By the late 1920s, Rakosi was in correspondence with

Ezra Pound Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Fascism, fascist collaborator in Italy during World War II. His works ...

, who prompted Louis Zukofsky to contact him. This led to Rakosi's inclusion in the Objectivist issue of ''

Poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...

'' and in the ''Objectivist Anthology''. Rakosi himself had reservations about the Objectivist tag, feeling that the poets involved were too different from each other to form a group in any meaningful sense of the word. He did, however, especially admire the work of

Charles Reznikoff Charles Reznikoff (August 31, 1894 – January 22, 1976) was an American poet best known for his long work, ''Testimony: The United States (1885–1915), Recitative'' (1934–1979). The term Objectivist was coined for him. The multi-volume ''Test ...

Later career

Like a number of his fellow Objectivists, Rakosi abandoned poetry in the 1940s. After his 1941 ''Selected Poems'' he dedicated himself to social work and apparently neither read nor wrote poetry. Years earlier, shortly after his twenty-first birthday, Rakosi had legally changed his name to Callman Rawley, believing that he would not find work with his foreign-sounding name. Under his adopted name, he served as head of the Minneapolis Jewish Children's and Family Service from 1945 until his retirement in 1968. A letter from the English poet

Andrew Crozier Andrew Thomas Knights Crozier (26 July 1943 – 3 April 2008) was a poet associated with the British Poetry Revival. Life Crozier was educated at Dulwich College, and later Christ's College, Cambridge. His 1976 book ''Pleats'' won the Alice Hu ...

about his early poetry was the trigger that started Rakosi writing again. His first book in 26 years, ''Amulet'', was published by New Directions in 1967 and his ''Collected Poems'' in 1986 by the

National Poetry Foundation The National Poetry Foundation (NPF) is a book publisher founded in 1971 by Carroll F. Terrell who built its reputation with Burton Hatlen at the University of Maine in Orono, Maine, Orono. Today it publishes poetry by individual authors as well as ...

. These were followed by several more volumes and by readings across the

and

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

. In early November 2003, Rakosi celebrated his 100th birthday with friends at the San Francisco Public Library. Upon his death

Jacket Magazine ''Jacket'' (now published as ''Jacket2'') is an online literary periodical, which was founded by the Australian poet John Tranter. The first issue was in October 1997. Until 2010, each new number of the magazine was posted at the Web site pi ...

editor

John Tranter John Ernest Tranter (born 29 April 1943) is an Australian poet, publisher and editor. He has published more than twenty books of poetry; devising, with Jan Garrett, the long running ABC radio program ''Books and Writing''; and founding in 1997 ...

observed the following:

External links

Rakosi at Modern American Poetry
in the Mandeville Special Collections Library at UC San Diego
Carl Rakosi Reading and Interview on KPFA's Ode To Gravity, 13 May 1971 (from The Internet Archive)

Carl Rakosi feature at Jacket Magazine
includes Rakosi in conversation with Tom Devaney & Olivier Brossard; link to audio recordings at University of Pennsylvania, and poems, dedications & remembrances from Jane Augustine,

Robert Creeley Robert White Creeley (May 21, 1926 – March 30, 2005) was an American poet and author of more than sixty books. He is usually associated with the Black Mountain poets, though his verse aesthetic diverged from that school. He was close with Char ...

, Laurie Duggan, Michael Heller and

Kent Johnson Kent Johnson (1955 – October 25, 2022) was an American poet, translator, critic, and anthologist. His work, much of it meta-fictional and/or satirical in approach, has provoked a notable measure of controversy and debate within English-languag ...

"Add-Verse" a poetry-photo-video project Rakosi participated in
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rakosi, Carl 1903 births 2004 deaths Objectivist poets American centenarians American male poets 20th-century American poets 20th-century American male writers Men centenarians