Kenneth Patching

Kenneth Patchen (born December 13, 1911 in Niles , Ohio , † January 8, 1972 in Palo Alto , California ) was an American poet, writer and painter. His works influenced the beat generation of the 1950s and 1960s.

Life

Kenneth Patchen's father was a steel worker in Youngstown and later in Warren, Ohio. Patching initially followed his father's example and worked in the steel industry, but then completed a year at Alexander Meiklejohn's Experimental College and then enrolled at the University of Wisconsin, but studied rather sporadically. As a young man he toured the United States and took a variety of odd jobs during the Depression . In 1934 he married Miriam Oikemus, to whom he later dedicated almost all of his books. In 1936 he published his first volume of poetry.

For many years of his life he suffered from a spinal problem and suffered from severe pain over and over again. His friend Henry Miller admired Patchchen, who, repeatedly tied to the bed, telephoned the printers from there to give precise instructions on how to design his books. Some critics see anticipations of the later “ concrete poetry ” in Patchen's experiments with printing. Others associate his erratic style with the Surrealists or Dadaists ; but he himself kept aloof from these movements. Other poets who loved Patch included TS Eliot , EE Cummings , WH Auden, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti . Miller described Patchen in a biographical sketch as a “tender prince”, who, however, also had a “monstrous side” - if an opinion did not suit him, Patchen could attack relentlessly. He is considered to be one of the stimulators of “beat poetry”, and he also seems to have anticipated elements of Pop Art . His books are full of allusions to contemporary high and popular culture, and slang also appears.

One of his better-known works is the prose work "The Journal of Albion Moonlight" from 1941, inspired, among other things, by the romantic and total work of art champion William Blake . His novel "Memoirs of a Shy Pornographer" was also quite successful, perhaps because of its somewhat misleading title. The book does not contain any actual pornography - instead, it contains many parodies and allusions to American censorship habits.

Patching propagated anarchism and pacifism, and in many of his works he turned against the war. He also opposed the United States' involvement in World War II because he saw democracy embroiled in political manipulation and senseless violence. Patchen did not want to be considered a good American patriot. Nevertheless, colleagues such as Kenneth Rexroth consider him to be one of the first American poets who consistently broke away from European models and pursued their own paths.

In 1942, Patch produced the radio play "The City Wears A Slouch Hat" (re-released on CD, 2000) together with the composer John Cage .

In the early 1950s he advocated a new form of poetic performance, a mixture of poetry and jazz music; he appeared, for example, on the side of the musician Charles Mingus . Recordings from this period have not survived, however. There are, however, patch records from the later years, for example "Kenneth Patch Reads with Jazz in Canada" (1959, re-released on CD, 2004), "Selected Poems of Kenneth Patchen" (1960) and "Kenneth Patch Reads His Love Poems" (published 1961). "From Albion Moonlight", recorded in his private apartment, was released in 1972 on the Folkways label.

Some musicians have set Patchen's lyrics to music, including David Bedford , violinist Carla Kihlstedt and American composer Kyle Gann . The latter backed patched original readings with music.

Patchen did not see himself as a painter in the conventional sense; he saw the medium as an extension of his writing. His pictures contain a lot of text, which can also be understood as an attempt to break with the linearity of writing. Patchen's typographical experiments and his combinations of poetry with graphics also bear witness to this. In addition, many of his poetry volumes were published in small editions with hand-painted covers.

At Van Gogh's painting style just the "Clumsy" and Unfinished attracted him: " ... as if he had never known the next step before. I mean, that's the Creator's attitude. “He also valued Pablo Picasso and Paul Klee .

Works

• Sure is One Peculiar Way to Run a Ballgame (Calendar with Patch Paintings, 1996)
• Nocturne for the keepers of the light. Poems 1936–1946 (1987)
• What shall we do without us? (1984)
• Still another Pelican in the Breadbox (1980)
• Patch's Lost Plays (1977, 1988)
• The Argument of Innocence (1976)
• Wonderings. Picture Poems (1971)
• Tell You That I Love You (1971)
• There's Love All Day (1970)
• Aflame and Afun of Walking Faces. Fables and Drawings (1970)
• The Collected Poems of Kenneth Patchen (1968)
• But Even So (1968)
• Selected Poems (UK edition, 1968)
• Hallelujah Anyway. Picture poems (1967)
• Double header. Poems (1966)
• Because It Is.Poems and Drawings (1960)
• The Love Poems of Kenneth Patching. Anthology (1960)
• Poemscapes. Poems (1958)
• When We Were Here Together. Poems (1957)
• Hurray for Anything (1957)
• A surprise for the bagpipe player. Silk Screen reproduction by Frank Bacher (1956)
• Glory Never Guesses. Silk Screen reproduction by Frank Bacher, (1955)
• The Famous Boating Party. Poems (1954)
• Fables and Other Little Tales (1953)
• Orchards, Thrones and Caravans. Poems (1952)
• In Peaceable Caves (1950)
• Red Wine and Yellow Hair. Poems (1949)
• Poems of Humor and Protest (1949, 1954)
• CCCLXXIV Poems (1948)
• To Say if You Love Someone (1948)
• Job. Invented and Engraved by William Blake (1947)
• See you in the morning. Prose (1947, 1949)
• Sleepers Awake. Prose (1946, 1969) German: Sleeper awakens. (1983)
• They Keep Riding Down All the Time (1946)
• Selected Poems. Poems and Drawings (1946, 1957, 1964)
• Pictures of Life and of Death. Poems (1946)
• Panels for the Walls of Heaven. Drawings and Poems (1946)
• Outlaw of the Lowest Planet. Poems (British Edition 1946)
• An Astonished Eye Looks out of the Air (1945, 1946)
• Memoirs of a Shy Pornographer. Prose (1945, 1946, 1948, 1958) German: Memories of a shy pornographer. (1964, 1970, 1984, 1985)
• Cloth of the Tempest. Poems (1943, 1948)
• The Teeth of the Lion (1942)
• The Dark Kingdom. Poems (1942, 1948)
• The Journal of Albion Moonlight. Prose (1941, 1944, 1946, 1947, 1961)
• First Will and Testament. Poems (1939, 1948)
• Before the Brave (1936, 1965, 1974)

Discography

• The City Wears a Slouch Hat (radio play from 1942 with John Cage, CD, 2000)
• Fables (LP, 1974)
• Patch Reads from Albion Moonlight (LP, 1972)
• Kenneth Patch Reads His Love Poems (LP, 1961)
• Patch's Funny Fables (LP)
• Readings with Jazz in Canada (LP, recorded August 26, 1959, re-released on CD 2004)
• Selected Poems of Kenneth Patchen (LP, 1959)
• Kenneth Patchen & the Chamber Jazz Sextet (LP, 1958)
• BE MUSIC, NIGHT - The Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet featuring Mike Pearson - A HOMAGE TO KENNETH PATCHEN - (CD, 2005)

Web links

• Literature by and about Kenneth Patchen in the catalog of the German National Library
• Calendar with patching paintings
• "Kenneth Patching Homepage"