NEWS & EVENTS • NEW TITLES • CATALOG • ABOUT US • CONTACT • PROFESSORS • BLOGS • NEWSLETTER

We Meet, by Kenneth Patchen

With illustrations by the author; Preface by Devendra Banhart

Meet Kenneth Patchen, a prolific, ground-breaking proletarian poet/painter whose most eclectic and wildly eccentric works are re-launched in a single startling volume--We Meet.

The singular work of Kenneth Patchen has influenced poets, artists and political activists for decades. New Directions is proud to launch a Patchen revival beginning with omnibus editions of his unique compositions.

We Meet highlights Patchen's more outlandish side and includes, like fabrics stitched into a crazy quilt, Because It Is, A Letter to God, Poemscapes, Hurrah For Anything, and Aflame & Afun of Walking Faces. "Because to understand one must begin somewhere," opens Patchen's fabulous book of poems Because It Is: perhaps the most ideal reason for such a melting pot of poetry. Open any page at random and find Patchen protesting the Second World War (A Letter to God), or telling the tale of how hot water first came to be tracked onto bedroom floors (Aflame and Afun of Walking Faces), or informing the reader what happened when the nervous vine wouldn't twine (Because It Is), or why he loathes those who act as if a cherry were something they personally thought up (Hurrah For Anything), or answering what he wants out of life: "let's say—no matter" (Poemscapes).

Kenneth Patchen (1911-1972) was one of the most prolific American poets of his time. He was born in Niles, Ohio. He attended school at the University of Madison-Wisconsin where he met his wife, Miriam Oikemus. They moved to Greenwich Village and befriended many writers including E.E. Cummings, Anais Nïn, and Henry Miller. An accident occurred after his first publication that would eventually leave him an invalid. He and his wife later moved to San Francisco during the early years of the Beat Movement. Many Beat poets would cite Patchen as a major influence. His "experimental protests" in poetry, painting, and prose remain unprecedented. Aside from his many books of poetry, his acclaimed novels, and his concrete visual works, Kenneth Patchen also collaborated with John Cage for the radio-play The City Wears a Slouch Hat, and worked with Charles Mingus developing jazz poetry. Patchen was an unwavering pacifist and many of his works have a political bent. Patchen was the first recipient of an NEA Literary Grant in 1967.

Date of publication: July 2008

EXCERPT: Preface by Devendra Banhart

I came across Kenneth Patchen the way one dreams of a tumbleweed rollin’ on by, leaving trails of luminosity from within its prismatic pit.  The world is, of course, that damn tumbleweed with Patchen’s riddle wrapped around itself, now here, now gone, like the marriage between "Hi!" and "So Long.” We are left born before a new kind of page, the shit kicked out of us, and nothing is sweeter.... Blessed be this shitkicker.

This could happen to you. It happened to me and all I did was randomly pull from my little library Patchen’s book, Because It Is. It’s something I can only describe in a matter-of-fact sort of way because it was created in a matter-of-fact sort of way. This is poetry and art explored through the language of possibility, wisdom and humor. Within these pages, mystery becomes little cartoon legs with a cosmic giggle for a head, ramblin’ out the difference between sincerity and honesty, reminding us that its one thing to have the gift but it’s a whole other thing to GIVE it.

I’m nuts about Patchen, and I’ve never come across anything like his work. I live happily at the bottom of the totem pole of Patchen’s devotees. Allen Ginsberg made a point to visit Patchen during his first trip to San Francisco. Henry Miller wrote an essay entitled “Man of Anger and Light” in his honor. Patchen worked with John Cage on an experimental radio play, “The City Wears a Slouch Hat.” Charles Mingus’ quartet accompanied him during one of his few readings (a recording has never been found). Lawrence Ferlinghetti even wrote an elegy to Patchen after his death. The list grows on.

By now, if you were me, you’d be wondering who this guy was, so I’ll tell ya’ what teeny-tiny tidbits I know. Kenneth Patchen was born on December 13, 1911, in a little city in Trumbull County, Ohio, called Niles. In 1924, Niles was the setting for an 18-hour battle between The Ku Klux Klan and the anti-Klan organization, The Knights of the Flaming Circle. I don’t know this for sure, but it’s possible that the battle (which the Knights won!) had a great impact on his being an ardent pacifist. While still in college, Patchen’s poem “Permanence” was published in The New York Times. It was his first published poem. What the fuck, right? After leap froggin’ from college to college he met his true love Miriam Oikemus, to whom he would eventually dedicate every one of his 40 plus books. He was a rising star of poetry until an accident occurred while working on a friend’s car that would debilitate him for life and eventually confine him to a wheelchair till his death in Palo Alto, California, on January 8, 1972.

Like confused clouds illuminating whatever the opposite of a shadow is, Patchen’s painted-poems and written drawings highlight a rogue sensibility within our humanity. Every emotion, every joke, every creation jostles us. To experience his work is to discover a peculiar sort of divinity. Heed the wisdom of the first poem in this collection, “to understand one must begin somewhere….” Welcome!

Poem for KP

The Silver Deer has appeared,
it’s presenting itself,
its eyes are everyland,
its mouth milks a funny-kinda-heaven,
and knows the POEM can make the flame extinguish itself,
and knows the POEM is the circle surrounding all circles,
and it wants us to stop coddling the grumpy raisin,
to stop bobbing for beans in the house of "mama i can’t leave this
body! but oh...!"
to stop pumping stones out of our lava-slits,
to welcome in the welcoming red thread, the lining,
the one who is reaching out to wherever the hell you are,
to not wait, to never wait again.