Electronic publication provides means for experimentation with criticism. According to a couple techie friends, some forms of shareware have been published under a license which authorizes anyone to alter the code however they like, as long as they also reproduce the original code and show how they have altered it. How does this relate to poetry, criticism, and copyrights? What would it be like if critics were required to reproduce the books about which they write? Although the idea would probably be anathema to most commercial publishers, it is attractive to me, and I have done several variations on it in this CD.

In my book, I have presented a review of Geoffrey Gardner's selection of Kenneth Rexroth's political poetry. On the companion CD, I present Morgan Gibson's basic study, Revolutionary Rexroth complete. Gibson has revised this book several times for its several print publications over three decades. The edition I put on-line represents a further revision and refinement of the book. Gibson's approach is essentially what he calls philosophical. Although he devotes plenty of space in his book to aesthetics, his main interest is in what Rexroth had to say and what that meant to those who read it and to those who might read it now. To me, this is not only sound Rexroth commentary, it is also refreshing to see a critic seriously discussing what a poet had to say instead of merely taking the poet's work as mindless and insignificant gestures whose significance can only be known to the savants who use the texts as the basis for advancing their unrelated positions.

The other major study is Ken Knabb's The Relevance of Rexroth, a model of concise introduction. This Knabb published on-line a decade after he published it in print through his Bureau of Public Secrets. Knabb's web site houses the Rexroth Archive, including extensive reprints of poetry and essays by Rexroth. The site also houses Knabb's Bureau of Public Secrets, the most extensive Situationist site on the web. To me, The Rexroth Archive is the best 20th Century Author Site on the web, and it benefits by its association with the Situationist site - Situationsm finding close parallels in Rexroth's anarchist views, though not mirroring them. In good Situationist manner, Knabb does not copyright his own work. I did, nonetheless, ask his consent in putting this book on the CD. The book is available in print in two formats, and you can order either of them using the information Knabb provides.

I have reproduced the on-line book as closely as I could. The links in the site contain complete URLs, so that if you click on them they will lead you to their references if you are on-line and the sites are still functioning. Knabb formats all his pages with a light green background. Reading from these for extended periods produces a reddish afterglow for me, and I like to say that reading them is a high-tech means of seeing the world through rose-colored glasses. Gibson's book also appears as it does at my web site.

When I wrote the review of Geoffrey Gardner's selection, the review grew into a huge and poorly organized essay on Rexroth and the milieux with which his life intersected. Thinking that I would not have much time left, I was unconsciously trying to say everything I could say, and this contributed to the overgrown and disorderly nature of the essay. For the final review, I extensively edited the opening of the larger essay, and left it at that. A number of friends who read the original essay suggested that I rework it into a book. I would have liked to have been able to do that. That's not to be, but this disk does give me the opportunity to present all the important books on Rexorth published so far, and the base for whatever appears in the future.