When Kenneth Rexroth settled in San Francisco in 1927, West Coast writers had already proudly embraced the special experience and beauty of things Western in their decisively American style. In opposition to the dominant cultural values of the East, the San Francisco Bay area in particular served as a hotbed for both a regional and an avant-garde Western literature. Joining the modernist avant-garde circles as an accomplished poet, painter, and political activist, Rexroth developed a poetics that amalgamated the realism and naturalism of Frank Norris and Jack London with a new Western cadence.

Like most Westerners, Rexroth was not a native of the region. He added to the rugged frontier aesthetic a refined, internationally flavored modernism that did not conflict with the regional values and ideals he cherished. It is no small accomplishment for an American poet to join Western ways of speech and life with elements of world...