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Carl Rakosi Papers
MSS 0355
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Title: Carl Rakosi Papers
Identifier/Call Number: MSS 0355
Contributing Institution:
Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego
9500 Gilman Drive
La Jolla, California, 92093-0175
Languages:
English
Physical Description:
8.2 Linear feet
(18 archives boxes and 1 oversize folder)
Date (inclusive): 1903-2004
Abstract: Papers of Carl Rakosi, American poet and social worker, who professionally practiced psychotherapy under the name Callman
Rawley. Rakosi was known for his association with the Objectivist movement as well as other Jewish writers. The collection
contains correspondence, prose, poems, book reviews, and extensive interviews with Rakosi.
Creator:
Rakosi, Carl, 1903-2004
Additional Carl Rakosi materials are located in the David Ignatow Papers (MSS 2), United Artists Archive (MSS 12), George
Oppen Papers (MSS 16), Clayton Eshleman Papers (MSS 21), Sun and Moon Archive (MSS 221), and Charley George Papers (MSS 387).
Significant portions of Rakosi's papers are also located at the University of Texas, Austin, the Houghton Library at Harvard
University, and the University of Wisconsin, Madison (see correspondence in case file).
Scope and Content of Collection
Papers of Carl Rakosi, American poet and social worker, who professionally practiced psychotherapy under the name Callman
Rawley. Rakosi was known for his association with the Objectivist movement as well as other Jewish writers. The collection
contains correspondence, prose, poems, book reviews, and extensive interviews with Rakosi, as well as journal articles, case
histories and notes that document his work as a psychotherapist during the decades when he withdrew from the publishing world.
Included are typescripts and photocopies of poems for
The Collected Poems of Carl Rakosi and page proofs for
The Old Poet's Tale (1999). The collection represents the part he played as a young poet in the Objectivist movement, with copies of correspondence
with other Objectivist poets such as Louis Zukofsky, and essays written by Rakosi much later on the impact of that literary
moment, such as "The Objectivist Connection" which explains the origin of the term "Objectivist." The collection contains
worksheets for poems, audio and videocassette recordings of readings and interviews, and drafts of printed interviews.
Accession Processed in 1996
Materials primarily documenting Rakosi's writings from 1988-1995, as well as his career as a psychotherapist and social worker.
Arranged in four series: 1) BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIALS, 2) CORRESPONDENCE, 3) WRITINGS BY RAKOSI and 4) WRITINGS BY OTHERS.
Accessions Processed in 2003
Includes correspondence (including important early correspondence from the 1930s, as well as more recent letters), worksheets
for poems, tapes of readings and interviews with Rakosi, drafts of printed interviews, and materials related to Rakosi's readings
and lectures from approximately 1973-1999.
Arranged in five series: 5) BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIALS, 6) CORRESPONDENCE, 7) WRITINGS BY RAKOSI, 8) RECORDINGS and 9) ORIGINALS
OF PRESERVATION PHOTOCOPIES.
Accession Processed in 2005
Includes more recent correspondence (though it does contain excerpts of important early correspondence from the 1930s with
other writers and family members), substantial folders of source material and drafts of poems in progress, materials related
to Rakosi's 100th birthday, and memorials.
Arranged in three series: 10) BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIALS, 11) CORRESPONDENCE and 12) WRITINGS BY RAKOSI.
Carl Rakosi was born on November 6, 1903, in Berlin, Germany, and came to the United States with his father and stepmother
in 1910. He received his B.A. (1924) and M.A. (1926) from the University of Wisconsin, and completed his Masters of Social
Work at the University of Pennsylvania in 1940. He married Leah Jaffe in 1939.
During the thirties, Rakosi was a member of a group of poets called "The Objectivists," which included Louis Zukofsky, Charles
Reznikoff, and George Oppen. Between 1939 and 1965, he stopped writing in order to devote himself to social work and psychotherapy.
It was not until 1965, at the urging of Andrew Crozier, that Rakosi started to write again. Rakosi practiced social work and
psychotherapy as Callman Rawley, his legally adopted professional name. Between 1945 and his retirement in 1968, Rakosi was
Executive Director of the Jewish Family and Children's Service in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He also conducted a private practice
in psychotherapy between 1955 and 1971.
As an important Objectivist poet, Rakosi's style of writing can be summarized by Stanley Cooperman's comment: "What Rakosi
has, delightfully, is an ability to translate emotion into objects, tastes, smells: and these, in turn, are completely familiar-
except that the familiarity occurs in unexpected juxtapositions of sound and theme...Rakosi's work is at once irreverent and
serious; highly intellectual and simplistic."
His published works include SELECTED POEMS (1941), AMULET (1967), ERE-VOICE (1971), EX CRANIUM, NIGHT (1975), MY EXPERIENCE
IN PARNASSUS (1977), SPIRITUS I (1983), COLLECTED POEMS (1986), THE EARTH SUITE (1997), and THE OLD POET'S TALE (1999). Besides
his literary work, including poetry, essays and book reviews, Rakosi also published articles and reviews on social work and
psychology.
In 2003, Rakosi's 100th birthday celebration was marked by several poets--including Anselm Hollo, Lyn Hejinian, George Evans
and others--reading from their own work at Rakosi's request. Until his death on June 24, 2004, Rakosi continued to develop
new poems and to correspond with younger writers interested in his and other Objectivists' work.
Publication rights are held by the creator of the collection.
Carl Rakosi Papers, MSS 0355. Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego.
Acquired 1995-2011.
Materials contained in Box 5, Folders 9-11 are restricted until the year 2070 according to federal and state laws. Media is
restricted. Researchers may request user copies be produced.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Auxeméry, Jean-Paul -- Correspondence
Biggs, Mary -- Correspondence
Codrescu, Andrei, 1946- -- Correspondence
Corman, Cid -- Correspondence
Dawson, Fielding, 1930-2002 -- Correspondence
DuPlessis, Rachel Blau -- Correspondence
George, Kathi -- Correspondence
Heller, Michael, 1937- -- Correspondence
Oppen, George
Prynne, J. H., 1936- -- Correspondence
Rakosi, Carl, 1903-2004 -- Archives
Steiner, Flora -- Correspondence
American poetry -- 20th century