Kenneth Patchen: Rebel Poet in America - Hardcover

by Larry Smith (Author)

"It has taken more that twenty-five years for this great poet's underground life to see the light of day in this rich, thorough, compelling biography. Patchen, our most unfortu�nate, forgotten, unique man of American letters and of' passionate mercy' created his own wonder world of words, kingdoms and creatures to save himself�and us all:

Front Jacket

Well, the first modern poet I ever heard of was Kenneth Patchen, when I was living in Greenwich Village in New York as a kid about 1939. And then again after the war in '46, '47, he was the first modern poet I ever ran across, and he and Kenneth Rexroth were the greatest political poets of the period after the second world war, and they were great love poets too. They are kind of the fathers of our generation [of poets]. He and Henry Miller were what you might call a 'dissident brotherhood.' They were a kind of dissident triumvirate to me and were saying things that no other poets or writers were saying. . . . --Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Back Jacket

I arrived in San Francisco only a year after Kenneth Patchen's death in 1972, but even then his spirit and legend was a major presence amongst those of us who were the baby Beats," impressionable, and of the 60' s generation. Kenneth Rexroth was singing his praises. For those of us who have gone their own way, counter-culturally, Kenneth Patchen may be, directly or indirectly, the most important influence on our generations' poetic voice. Along with the likes of Jack Spicer, Bob Kaufman, Jack Hirschman, Philip Lamantia, and the Beats, Patchen sings to us still. Kenneth Patchen: Rebel Poet in America is the long-overdue testament and homage to this modem 20th century icon."