1) wide crack in concrete
mention the visual poetry of kenneth
patchen and usually his picture poems are
what come to mind or are discussed - the
poems in the new directions books such as
HURRAH FOR ANYTHING, HALLELUJAH ANYWAY, BUT
EVEN SO, and WONDERINGS. how many people i
wonder are aware of the earlier visual
poems in his novels and an earlier volume
of poems? of those aware, how many continue
to ignore the strength of vision and
importance of this work within the context
of the world-wide revival of the visual
poem? for how long are those within the
so-called critical enclaves of concrete and
visual poetry going to continue ignoring
the fact that patchen composed texts and
poems which broke the linear reading habit
with typographical fragmentation issuing
the unique and inherent communication of
letters, phonic characters, graphic signs,
words and word groupings? or that he
expanded the non-linear further with list
poems, pattern poems, diagram poems, number
poems, repetition poems, visual poems, op
poems, and picture poems? or that he
composed series after series of kinetic
poems and events to add multi-dimensional
cross currents which dance thruout the work
all the while focusing with his esthetic
sensibility upon the creative arrangement
by embracing the expanse offered by love?
SLEEPERS AWAKE, 1946, and PANELS FOR THE
WALLS OF HEAVEN, 1946. these are the two
major works which are continually ignored
along with even earlier works in THE
JOURNAL OF ALBION MOONLIGHT and CLOTH OF
THE TEMPEST.
SLEEPERS AWAKE and PANELS FOR THE WALLS
OF HEAVEN were published 5 years before the
founder of concrete poetry, eugene
gomringer, wrote his first constellation,
and 10 years before concrete poetry began
flaking around the globe. SLEEPERS AWAKE
was written in 1945; its visuals were
either prepared in advance in the
manuscript or type-composed alongside the
press during the book's printing. padell
book company of new york was the publisher.
bern porter, a master of the found poem,
published PANELS in berkley. porter wrote
me that this first edition--reviewed by no
one--now sells for $65 unless covered with
patchen hand painting which boosts the
collector's take to $250. naturally in the
unnatural state neither the patchens or
porters saw/see any of this coin other than
in the listings. also, he says that it is
his belief these 2 books are the world's
greatest of their kind. i have seen nothing
to contradict porter. both books mapped a
vast territory using the above mentioned
variety of forms later remapped by scores
of concrete poets during the 50's, 60's and
on into this nearly vanished decade. during
the remapping, patchen, having already
exhausted his creative fragmented
typography by 1946, turned his attention
and vision to painted books and picture
poems extending the visual virtuosity of
his written word. the PANELS were a
continuation of his esthetic fragmentation
from SLEEPERS AWAKE and the beginning of
his picture poems.
these time spans between patchen and
concrete poetry can easily be stretched
further if the visual work in THE JOURNAL
OF ALBION MOONLIGHT, its manuscript and
CLOTH OF THE TEMPEST are considered. THE
JOURNAL was written in 1939 and 40; self
published in 41. CLOTH was written and
composed in 41 and published by harper &
bros in 43. of special interest to myself
and others is one poem in CLOTH, "THE
MURDER OF TWO MEN BY A YOUNG MAN WEARING
LEMON-COLORED GLOVES," which can be found
in the SELECTED and COLLECTED POEMS. there
are those who have seen, read and bodily
digested it and never forget it - 1941.
so it sums to this: patchen the trail
blazer far ahead simultaneously working
several paths with a tremendous energy
burst; patchen as an instrument focused
with creative arrangement rejecting the
worship of chaos, an instrument thru which
a new and powerful vision channeled onto
the page freeing language from linear
constraints. far behind are the concrete
poets as a survey crew or crews plodding
along, some toying with chaos; so far
behind that patchen's work is both ignored
and forgotten. the existence of this early
work i'm sure has become an embarrassment to
many and this may be why only the picture
poems are discussed. another possibility
for this neglect - which flows over from
the omission of his linear work in numerous
anthologies and college courses - is that
his work is based upon love, as i said
earlier, his embrace of the expanse of
love, and as such, the work aimed not at
the head but the total individual: as the
body mind and spirit digest the work it
becomes part of the reader/viewer.
patchen's roots are those tapping the
poetic tradition of seer, visionary, a
tradition held suspect in this
intellectualized and fad to fad
hopscotching time wherein language,
stripped of its emotional and spiritual
vibrations, is looked upon as mere material
to manipulate.
i believe no one is in a position to
correctly chart the ripple effects of
patchen's visual work throughout the
concrete and visual poetry scene. i am not
in such a seat. however, as far as i know,
no u.s. published concrete anthology
printed a patchen visual work or mentioned
his early or contemporaneous works (except
for one slite aside) even though the
triangle from which he initially drew was
identical to the one from which the
concrete poets later drew: apollinaire,
futurism and dada. european concrete
anthologies and catalogs i'v studied also
include the patchen blank. non-english
speaking europe can be excused up to the
point where the new directions' reprints
became/become available (new directions/333
sixth ave/new york ny 10014). or can they?
patchen visual work appeared in the early
50's in VOU, Tokyo, and enlargements of
several pages from CLOTH and THE JOURNAL
appeared at shows in japan in the early
50's. jean wahl reviewed patchen in a
french publication around 1950; tho the
review was general in scope THE JOURNAL was
mentioned. but the english speaking sector,
especially those whose attitudes body
language a know-it-all pose, can not be
excused.
no concrete, visual, language or
experimental poet, artist, writer, editor
or publisher wrote or visited patchen to
discuss these exclusions. since his death,
miriam patchen has had, until my letters
and visit of last summer, no such
inquiries. while talking with her i found
myself shaking my head in disbelief that
this situation exists. she lives a mere 30
minutes by non-traffic jammed car from san
francisco, home of several visual, language
and experimental poets, etc. nope. no
inquiries, yet these folks claim a global
view. what good is such eyesight while
unknowingly their own backyard is in
disrepair?
wrote to u.s. the concrete anthology
maker crew membership to hear their defense
of the offense. ONCE AGAIN was entirely
edited in paris by bory who, as james
laughlin says, didnt know patchen.
considering that the number of english
language poets in this anthology ruffly
adds to 1/3 or that 1/6 of the poets were
from the u.s. and that laughlin of new
directions is patchen's publisher, i wonder
why he failed to introduce bory to
patchen's work? chicago is silent. mary
ellen solt also remains silent. on one hand
she is commended here for injecting charles
olson's poetic force field into visual
poetics, nevertheless the missing hand
cripples her anthology and more so in the
lite of the published jonathan williams'
letter which pointed to patchen and others.
dick higgins, publisher of the now defunct
something else press, writes he can't answer
for his editor, emmett williams; he doesn't
consider patchen a concrete poet; and, "His
stuff just doesn't hold any strong or
cohesive literary gestalt for me; I forget
it sooo easily." i have heard much the same
from others who share this obvious
difference of opinion with me. tho patchen
didnt carry a concrete poetry club
membership card, just how do you who claim
him not to be a concrete poet categorize
this early work which smoothly glides into
concrete poetry definitions?:
"fragmentation", "tension of things-words
in space-time" or "working with language
material, creating structures with it,
transmitting primarily esthetic
information". emmmett williams, editor of
AN ANTHOLOGY OF CONCRETE POETRY, probably
the most important and influential
anthology of its kind, claims that his
purpose was exposing the u.s. poets to the
concrete poetry from europe, south america
and japan, particularly those poets he felt
to be unknown in the u.s.. at least an
admission of conscious exclusion by reason
of specific focus. but he implied in his
letter that had there been an historical
section, then patchen would have been
included--exactly where higgins relegates
the man. in this anthology i see the 1943-
48 concrete poems by carlos belloli;
patchen's poems of this same time period
effortlessly eclipse them. and from the
introduction, "Side by side are militant
social reformers, religious mystics,
lyricists of love, psychedelic visionaries,
engaged philosophers, disinterested
philologists and poetypographers. Such
diversity, reflected in the pages of this
anthology, may seem to rob the label
'Concrete' of any concrete meaning
whatsoever. On the other hand, it shows the
extent to which the dynamic concepts of the
new poetry have been accepted as a Poetics
valid for our times." plenty of room
existed to include the early patchen work.
instead, a wide crack in the concrete.
two recent non-concrete anthologies
subliminally recognized his work as well as
a language art show. in the introduction to
his BREAKTHROUGH FICTIONEERS, 1973, richard
kostelanetz credited patchen as the
american who pioneered "the mixing of
physically separated words and images"
period. in fact, this is only a phrase in a
long colonned sentence, a rather limp
finger pointing from an articulate and
outspoken critic for visual poetry,
language art and experimental writing. this
phrase also indicates an unfamiliarity with
patchen's early work by nodding towards the
picture poems. as curator of LANGUAGE &
STRUCTURE IN NORTH AMERICA, 1975,
kostelanetz included SLEEPERS AWAKE in the
book department and excluded the PANELS and
a host of other patchen visual work. while
printing 4 patchen visual poems, including
"THE MURDER OF TWO MEN . . .", in SPEAKING
PICTURES, milton klonsky failed in both the
bio notes and the mishandled historical
introduction to mention the bulk and wealth
of the early work.
in response to my letter, jonathan
williams wrote "Any ignoring came from the
usual sin, abysmal ignorance."
myself, i'm still shaking my head in
disbelief that such a powerful and
encompassing vision went and remains
ignored within the confines of concrete and
visual poetry, language art and
experimental writing criticism. but dont
believe me; indeed compare these early
works with concrete and visual poetry
anthologies and with the growing number of
experimental writing collections.