Patchen, Collected Poems. The great poet's complete poetry.
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20 of 22 people found the following review helpful
By sweetmolly
Kenneth Patchen, 1911-1972, was born in Ohio, fought in WWII, and spent the rest of his life invalided by spinal disease. His was a powerful, angry voice that could sing some of the most beautiful love poems of the past century. His art was violent and primitive; usually he incorporated poetry into his painting. His strongest influence was William Blake, e.e. cummings was a mentor. He moved easily among the San Francisco poets, a contemporary of Lawrence Ferlinghetti of the famed City Lights Book Store. He was truly a poet's poet and never compromised his art.
I don't know if was influential; he certainly didn't care. His public, his peers sought him; never the other way around. I read once that he wrote "naked poetry." The following poem is an excellent example of his wondrous way with words, the beauty, the anger and the savagery all in a few short stanzas.
The dove walks with sticky feet
Upon the green crowns of the almond tree,
Its feathers smeared over with warmth
Like honey
That drips lazily down into the shadow...
Anyone standing in that orchard,
So filled with peace and sleep,
Would hardly have noticed the hill
Nearby
With its three strange wooden arms
Lifted above a throng of motionless people
---Above the helmets of Pilate's soldiers
Flashing like silver teeth in the sun.
9 of 11 people found the following review helpful
By "human_rain"
Kenneth Patchen is by far my favorite poet. This is a brave statement coming from a reader/literature buff who prefers poems that are far more traditional in form and meter. While I respect and admire all creative forms of poetry (I myself shamelessly admit to being a lousy poet, which is probably why I read more of the stuff than I write), I have always had a higher interest in poets who follow rhyme-schemes because I always figured that this type of poem was more difficult to write. To follow a certain pattern and meter throughout a poem, and yet to still successfully make your statement and evoke emotion is a powerful example of creativity and ingenuity. Give me Yeats and Donne over blank-verse any day.
Having said that, I must confess that Patchen was a poet who always wrote to the beat of his own drum. He rarely used traditional form or meter, yet in steering away from traditional schemes, he managed to create his own rhyme and forms in brilliant wordplay that have since been copied by never replicated. Plus, the raw, honest emotion (often rage) and powerful, offbeat images that Patchen constantly creates only get better with each read. It is difficult for me to describe the man's work except for the title I have given this review. Do not expect traditional poetry in any shape of the imagination. But do expect beauty and honesty in all the themes that Patchen explores, whether he is describing life for all of its beauty, darkness, or sadness.
In other reviews I have written for this site, I have felt the need to expand into lengthy prose in order to promote to work I was writing about. I do not feel the need to do that here, as Patchen is better known than the previous writers and artists who I have reviewed (indeed, if you are reading this, it probably means that you're a fan of Patchen's anyway). Having said that, it is a pity that he is not included in more anthologies and that he is not studied more in English classes. There is something here for everyone, and the questions and comments that he evokes about life and society are not to be missed.
I shall conclude with one of my favorite poems by Patchen, to demonstrate the raw emotion and themes that he creates with his unusual form and dynamic images. Thankfully, this volume includes this particular poem and others like it with similar haunting beauty.
"If We Are To Know Where We Live"
"I came to the house. It was dark.
It was hell standing there.
No one answered my knock.
WHAT ARE THEY DOING IN MY HOUSE
I tapped on the window. I banged on the door.
They pulled the shades. They threw the heavy bolt.
But I knew that they wanted
And I saw what I was not to see
And I heard what I was not to hear.
They wanted to murder the thing within the house.
I saw my own face with the knives about it.
I heard my own screams as they tortured me.
And I was everyone. We all stood there."
Hopefully, this poem has proven any point that I've tried to make. If you love poetry or are just beginning to dive into the world of literature, Patchen is an important, often overlooked writer who you simply should not miss.
8 of 11 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Criminally underappreciated poet of exceptional sincerity honesty and power
October 8, 2005
Kenneth Patchen is a one of a kind poet. He wrote two or three poems worth all the musty little university poetry journals put together. His sincerity is brutally sweet when he's sweet, and brutally cruel when he's angry. Every word shivers with ethical and political commitment but without sentimentality and cheap moralism. He makes Ginsberg's howls look like squeaks, and the university poets look like conmen. He makes Bukowski seem flower-scented. He's unlike anything else. That he's forgotten proves that the contemporary world of poetry is a sham and a crime.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Almost 50 years loving KP and still going strong.
"I don't want to startle you but they are going to kill most of us." That has been one of the most memorable poetic lines for me since college, almost 50 years ago now. Read more
Published 2 months ago by J. Wagner
2.0 out of 5 stars
Very bad
I ordered this book in hopes of reading a great artist's work instead I got a book that came in pieces. Torn in half. Badly damaged. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Paul Via Franco
1.0 out of 5 stars
A regrettably poor poet, seek out the prose works instead
The poet Kenneth Patchen is a fascinating figure. He was a conscientious objector in World War II, the "good war" even many pacifists would refuse to have stayed out of. Read more
Published on December 1, 2006 by Christopher Culver
5.0 out of 5 stars
infinities of mad infinitudes - the crier
I am not surprised that Albion Moonlight has so many wonderful comments, but this, the Collected Poems has none. Speechlessness made by endlessness. Read more
Published on August 6, 1999
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