The Mystery of Rod McKuen: the Forgotten Best-selling Poet
The Story
Rod McKuen sold 60 million books and 100 million records, making him the most commercially successful poet in American publishing history, yet he is almost entirely forgotten today.
His 1967 collection Listen to the Warm launched a run in which he sold a million copies in his first year at Random House, a milestone Allen Ginsberg's Howl took nearly 50 years to reach, and by 1970 his titles made up four percent of the publisher's total sales.
At his peak he sold out Carnegie Hall annually on his birthday, won a Grammy for Best Spoken Word Recording, earned two Oscar nominations, and heard Frank Sinatra record an entire album of his songs.
Critics savaged him, with Karl Shapiro writing that it was irrelevant to speak of McKuen as a poet and a 1969 Los Angeles Times review claiming better verse could be found on restroom walls.
Born in Oakland in 1933 to an unmarried mother, McKuen survived childhood abuse, publicly denied being gay during the 1977 Anita Bryant controversy, and spent decades with partner Edward Habib while describing him as his brother.
By the 1980s depression pushed him out of public life, his books fell out of print, and after his death in 2015 his influence lingered in unexpected places, from a Nirvana demo of Seasons in the Sun to comparisons with Rupi Kaur's accessible verse.
His 1967 collection Listen to the Warm launched a run in which he sold a million copies in his first year at Random House, a milestone Allen Ginsberg's Howl took nearly 50 years to reach, and by 1970 his titles made up four percent of the publisher's total sales.
At his peak he sold out Carnegie Hall annually on his birthday, won a Grammy for Best Spoken Word Recording, earned two Oscar nominations, and heard Frank Sinatra record an entire album of his songs.
Critics savaged him, with Karl Shapiro writing that it was irrelevant to speak of McKuen as a poet and a 1969 Los Angeles Times review claiming better verse could be found on restroom walls.
Born in Oakland in 1933 to an unmarried mother, McKuen survived childhood abuse, publicly denied being gay during the 1977 Anita Bryant controversy, and spent decades with partner Edward Habib while describing him as his brother.
By the 1980s depression pushed him out of public life, his books fell out of print, and after his death in 2015 his influence lingered in unexpected places, from a Nirvana demo of Seasons in the Sun to comparisons with Rupi Kaur's accessible verse.
Why It Matters
He outsold every poet in American publishing history, and the culture buried him anyway. Rod McKuen sold more than 60 million books and 100 million records before retreating in 1981 AP, winning a Grammy, filling Carnegie Hall on his birthday and hearing Sinatra cut an album of his songs the Guardian. Critics never forgave the success: a former poet laureate ruled his work not even trash, and a Los Angeles Times reviewer preferred restroom walls. The reassessment that lifted Instagram poets such as Rupi Kaur has not reached him, because rights to the archive sit with heirs who see little value in reissues. Until an archive claims those tapes, the bestselling poet stays lost.
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