Editing Kenneth Patchen (section)

== Career ==
=== Writing ===
Patchen's first book of poetry, ''Before the Brave'', was published by [[Random House]] in 1936.  His earliest collections of poetry were his most political and led to his being championed, in the 1930s, as a "proletariat poet". This description, which Patchen rejected, never stuck, since his work varied widely in subject, style and form. As his career progressed, he continued to push himself into more and more experimental styles and forms, developing, along with writers such as [[Langston Hughes]] and [[Kenneth Rexroth]], what came to be known as [[jazz poetry]]. He also experimented with his childlike "painted poems," many of which were published posthumously in the 1984 collection ''What Shall We Do Without Us''.

After the appearance of his first book, he and Miriam traveled to the [[Southwestern United States|Southwest]] and then moved to [[Hollywood, Los Angeles|Hollywood]] in 1938, where he tried, unsuccessfully, writing film scripts and worked for the [[Works Progress Administration|WPA]]. His next book of poems, ''First Will and Testament'', drew the attention of [[James Laughlin]], who was then launching [[New Directions Publishing]] as a student at [[Harvard]]. Laughlin's decision to publish Patchen's work started a relationship that would last for the remainder of both men's careers. For a short time, in 1939, Patchen even took an office job working for New Directions. In addition to their professional relationship, Patchen and Laughlin also became good friends.<ref>Smith, L. R. (2000). pp 90, 119.</ref>

{{Blockquote|quote=<poem>
The lions of fire
Shall have their hunting in this black land

Their teeth shall tear at your soft throats
Their claws kill

O the lions of fire shall awake
And the valleys steam with their fury
…
Because you have turned your faces from God
Because you have spread your filth everywhere.</poem>
|source=''from'' "The Lions of Fire Shall Have Their Hunting"
<br>''The Teeth of the Lion'' (1942)}}

Patchen pioneered the "drawing-and-poem form" as well as the painting-and-poem form<ref name=Miller /> and produced over a thousand "painted books", special copies of his own works with original paintings on the covers. His many hundreds of drawings and paintings have been described as being reminiscent of those of [[William Blake|Blake]] and [[Paul Klee|Klee]].<ref name="Tarn, N. 1968" /> During the course of a long and varied career, he also tried his hand at writing experimental novels, such as ''The Journal of Albion Moonlight'' and ''The Memoirs of a Shy Pornographer'', and the radio play ''The City Wears a Slouch Hat''. Patchen's ''Collected Poems'' was first published in 1969, just a few years before his death.

=== Peers ===
One of Patchen's biggest literary supporters was the novelist [[Henry Miller]], who wrote a long essay on Patchen, entitled ''Patchen: Man of Anger and Light'', in 1946.<ref>{{cite web |last = Miller |first = Henry |url = http://www.tc.umn.edu/~hreh0001/pal.html |title = Patchen: Man of Anger and Light |publisher = University of Minnesota Press|year = 1946 |access-date = April 3, 2012 }}</ref> In this essay, Miller wrote, "Patchen's pacifism is closely tied to what he sees as the loss of innocence in society, the corrupted human spirit, and is often expressed with animals. Such is the case with the forbidding 'The Lions of Fire Shall Have Their Hunting.'"<ref name=Miller /> Patchen also had a close, lifelong friendship with the poet [[E.E. Cummings]], which began when they were both living in Greenwich Village in the 1940s.<ref>Smith, L. R. (2000). p. 146.</ref> Patchen was also a close peer of the West Coast poet [[Kenneth Rexroth]], who shared Patchen's antiwar radicalism and his interest in combining poetry readings with jazz accompaniment. The two poets began a correspondence in the late 1940s and continued it in the 1950s. Rexroth encouraged the Patchens to move to San Francisco in the early 1950s.<ref name="Frost" /><ref>For a record of his correspondence with fellow writers and artists, see Allen Frost, ''Selected Correspondence of Kenneth Patchen'', Bottom Dog Press.</ref>

=== Influence ===
In the 1950s, Patchen became a major influence on the younger [[Beat generation|beat]] poets, including [[Allen Ginsberg]] and [[Lawrence Ferlinghetti]]. Miriam Patchen recalled some of these young poets, including [[Philip Lamantia]], [[Gary Snyder]], and [[Michael McClure]], visiting the Patchens' home in San Francisco to pay their respects.<ref name="Smith" /> However, once the Beats' popularity grew, Patchen disliked being associated with them and was highly critical of their glorification of drug use and what he perceived to be a strong desire for media attention and fame.<ref>Smith, L. R. (2000). p 146.</ref> Patchen referred to "Ginsberg and Co." and the media hype surrounding them as a "freak show."<ref name=Miller />

=== Awards ===
In 1936, soon after the release of his first book, Patchen was awarded a [[Guggenheim Fellowship]]. In 1944, he won the Ohioana Award for his book ''Cloth of the Tempest''.<ref name="Frost" /> He received the [[Shelley Memorial Award]] in 1954. He received a $10,000 grant for his contribution to American literature from the [[National Endowment for the Arts|National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities]] in 1967.<ref name="Smith" />