Art's Memories—Kenneth Patchens in Frank's Bookshelf,

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.

Kenneth Patchen Picture Poem

Roger Hilton Night Letter

Roger Hilton

Roger Hilton Night Letter

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.

Questions For The Internet Age

QUESTIONS FOR THE INTERNET AGE

Are you there?
Who are you?
Why did you come?
Why do you care?
What’s in this for you?
Don’t you have a life?
You’re innocent?
Are you a reporter?
Did you do something?
Did I?
Did you never do these things?
What are you after?
Am I newsworthy?
Do you have a story in mind?
Am I your muse?
Am i just one more victim?
Are you confused?
Did I turn the tables?
Did you just bump into me?
Was this just an accident?
Shall we go our separate ways?
Are we forever inextricably linked?
Are you a friend?
Could you be a friend?
Did you lose your way?
Are you reaching out?
Can I hold your hand?
Touch your hair?
Doesn’t this creep you out?
Couldn’t you stop?
Can’t I?
Am I obsessive compulsive?
Do you have a condition?
Is there no way out?
When did you arrive?
Have you been there long?
How much did you see?
Was it all bad?
Are you watching life go by?
Anything incriminating?
Won’t it disappoint?
Isn’t this a waste of time?
Don’t you have better things to do?
Is this just the modern age?
Can’t we put on the brakes?
Can we change our approach?
Is there another way to do this?
Do you ever respond?
Have you got no heart?
Were you born this way?
Was it always so?
Are you a technician?
Is it a lonely life?
Don’t you find it sad?
Do you want to cry at times?
Couldn’t we shrug it off?
Has anything been broken?
Do you ever laugh?
Is this your line of business?
What time is it?
Are you hungry?
Is that what drives you?
Is it me you want?
When did this begin?
Did you always know?
Do you wish to cause pain?
Are you seeking enlightenment?
Is this the way to go?
Want to play a game?
In the end is it harmless?
Did you mean to do this?
Are you above it all?
Haven’t you better things to do?
Is life that dull?
Is this sadism?
Are you a busybody?
Should I poke back?
Should I be concerned?
Should I feel sorry for you?
Should I care?
Is your skin thicker than mine?
Can you claim the high ground?
Are you doing good work?
Do you get paid for this?
Do you have no shame?
Is it my money you are after?
Do you want my secrets?
Do you want my passwords?
Is it my ideas you are after?
Why choose me?
Would you like a drink?
A bite?
Do you want my stuff?
Are you a collector?
A hoarder?
Is hacking fun?
Was this an accident?
Is it happenstance?
Are you alone?
Do you want a friend?

Painted Poems of Kenneth Patchen

"I have in the last, oh fifteen years, as you know, done a great deal of graphic work, and it happens that very often my writing with pen is interrupted by my writing with brush, but I think of both as writing. In other words, I don't consider myself to be a painter. I think of myself as someone who has used the medium of painting in an attempt to extend. It gives an extra dimension to the medium of words."
Kenneth Patchen

1) wide crack in concrete

mention the visual poetry of kenneth patchen and usually his picture poems are what come to mind or are discussed - the poems in the new directions books such as HURRAH FOR ANYTHING, HALLELUJAH ANYWAY, BUT EVEN SO, and WONDERINGS. how many people i wonder are aware of the earlier visual poems in his novels and an earlier volume of poems? of those aware, how many continue to ignore the strength of vision and importance of this work within the context of the world-wide revival of the visual poem? for how long are those within the so-called critical enclaves of concrete and visual poetry going to continue ignoring the fact that patchen composed texts and poems which broke the linear reading habit with typographical fragmentation issuing the unique and inherent communication of letters, phonic characters, graphic signs, words and word groupings? or that he expanded the non-linear further with list poems, pattern poems, diagram poems, number poems, repetition poems, visual poems, op poems, and picture poems? or that he composed series after series of kinetic poems and events to add multi-dimensional cross currents which dance thruout the work all the while focusing with his esthetic sensibility upon the creative arrangement by embracing the expanse offered by love? SLEEPERS AWAKE, 1946, and PANELS FOR THE WALLS OF HEAVEN, 1946. these are the two major works which are continually ignored along with even earlier works in THE JOURNAL OF ALBION MOONLIGHT and CLOTH OF THE TEMPEST.

SLEEPERS AWAKE and PANELS FOR THE WALLS OF HEAVEN were published 5 years before the founder of concrete poetry, eugene gomringer, wrote his first constellation, and 10 years before concrete poetry began flaking around the globe.
by Karl Kempton

Kenneth Patchen: Painted Books and Picture-Poems

The Little Bug Angel from A Surprise for the Bagpipe Player, 1955. Screenprint on Japanese paper. Courtesy of Jonathan Clark

This show is currently on view at San Francisco Museum of Art and I suspect is getting little press.  Kenneth Patchen never did get a fair shake though both a brilliant artist and painter. 

Kenneth Patchen: Painted Books and Picture-Poems
November 21, 2009 — March 21, 2010

Already an established writer known for his pacifist sympathies and the 1941 anti-war novel Journal of Albion Moonlight, Kenneth Patchen (1911–1972) and his wife, Miriam, settled in the Telegraph Hill neighborhood of San Francisco in 1950. They became friendly with Lawrence Ferlinghetti, founder of the City Lights publishing company and bookstore and Patchen became a contributor to Ferlinghetti’s Pocket Poets series. He was linked with the Beat movement, particularly when he released home recordings he had made of himself reading his poetry to jazz accompaniment, inadvertently inspiring the creation of the so-called poetry and-jazz movement.

In 1959, a serious and inoperable back ailment required Patchen to be confined to bed for the rest of his life. Undeterred, he continued to be an innovator, producing picture-poems (fusions of original poetry and paintings) as well as special editions of his books for which he painted and decorated the covers. The works in the exhibition are generously loaned by Jonathan Clark, founder of Artichoke Editions in Mountain View and longtime friend of the Patchens.