I'll always remember my first encounter with the work of
Kenneth Patchen, the great American poet. My friend, Frank B, had a box set by
New Directions, of his picture poems, in his bookshelf, across from the studio where we all were striving to create, as a motley community of artists and musicians, a complete, unified (by which I mean not totally fractured) theater piece, over a period of 2 hectic months. In his picture he'd struck a rare expressive vein wherein word and picture were organically (and passionately) mushed together to create a unique, very personal vision. Later I understood that most of his picture poems were done as he endured a terrible back pain that afflicted him for the rest of his life. The picture of Patchen shows him backstage at the Living Theater, where he was performing with Charles Mingus, reading his poems to Jazz circa 1957. For this reason he was often described as a Beat Poet, a label he resisted.
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| Kenneth Patchen Picture Poem |
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| Roger Hilton Night Letter |
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| Roger Hilton |
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| Roger Hilton Night Letter |
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| Allen Ginsberg with Kenneth Patchen |
I conflate his work at times with the night letters of
Roger Hilton, drawings also created against a backdrop of pain and also a deep resistance to going gently into that dark night. Created in his last two years in Cornwall, England, where he lived virtually bedridden, sustaining himself on cigarettes and whiskey to Patchen's work was underscored by a deep anger but vast hope for humanity. these gouaches were characterized by a bitterness leavened only by the power and fury of the work. Again words (usually grocery lists, or a list of demands, or cruel jokes laid on his poor, devoted, and long suffering second wife, Rose) are seductively, powerfully merged with imagery and incisive mark making.
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