Selected Correspondence of Kenneth Patchen

Letter from and to Kenneth Patchen to all of these literary figures: Harvey Breit � Alex Comfort � E.E. Cummings � Robert Duncan � James T. Farrell � Lawrence Ferlinghetti � James Laughlin � James Boyer May � Alexander Meiklejohn � Henry Miller � Henry Moe � Harriet Monroe�Lewis Mumford � Alan Neil � Miriam Patchen � Henry Rago � Kenneth Rexroth �Harry Roskolenko � Isabel Smith-Stein � Wallace Stevens � Dylan Thomas � Leon Trotsky �Louis Untermeyer � Amos Wilder � Thomas Wolfe � Jasper Wood|Selected Correspondence of Kenneth Patchen

Kenneth Patchen (1911-1972) was a poet, playwright, fiction and fable

writer, artist, and performer of poetry-jazz, working in the tradition

of engaged writing which he helped to forge in America. Producing

almost a book a year for 36 years, his work stands as an exposed girder

in the structure of American character and art. His friendships with

such writers as Amos Wilder, Lewis Mumford, James Laughlin, Henry

Miller, Kenneth Rexroth, Dylan Thomas, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and

others place him at the center of dissident writing in America. Rising

from his native grounds in working-class Ohio, he became a leading

figure among Leftist thinkers and artists in Greenwich Village�s 1930s

and 40s. In the 1950s he moved to the West Coast where he created

artistic blends of poetry and art, and poetry and jazz. Finally crippled

with back pain during the last decade of his life, he created the

wonderful picture-poems. For four decades, on East and West Coast,

by the force of his own will and his native genius, Patchen molded a

life and art as one. With the loving support of his wife Miriam he

endured the pain and travail of years of struggle to recast an art based

on truth and striking beauty. His is one of the great stories of American

literature.

Allen Frost lives in Bellingham, Washington, with wife Laura, daughter Rosa and son Rustle. He was born in La Jolla, California, and graduated from Bowdoin College in Maine. He has lived and worked in Seattle, Washington; Portland, Oregon; and Huron, Ohio. He works in the library at Western Washington University. His Ohio Trio: Fictions appeared in 2001 from Bottom Dog Press, followed by Bowl of Water written between 1989-2002. Another Life is drawn from limited edition poetry chapbooks written 2002-2007. Home Recordings appeared from Bird Dog Publishing in 2010. He contributed an article to the collection d.a.levy and the mimeograph revolution (2008). He is an associate editor of Bottom Dog Press.