SOURCE: "Calling the Heart to Order," in The New York Times Book Review, July 23, 1967, p. 8.

In this review of The Collected Shorter Poems, Unterecker finds a self gradually more revealed through the course of Rexroth's career.

Reading through all of Kenneth Rexroth's shorter poems is a little like immersing oneself in the literary history of the last 40 years; for Rexroth experimented with almost all of the poetic techniques of the time, dealt, at least in passing, with all of its favorite themes.

One moves through imagist lyrics, Chinese and Japanese forms, surreal constructions, poems intended to be read against the improvisations of jazz combos, other poems intended to be sung to the tune of folk ballads, poems influenced by Apollinaire and poems that influenced, one assumes, Ferlinghetti, Ginsberg and Corso. In a great many of the poems, Rexroth makes clear just how he stands on social issues. There...