Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Kenneth Patchen


Nurse Fusion posted Patchen's poem The Artist's Duty, reminding me of a poet from my past, someone I read frequently in the early 60s. Funny how we have these periods when we read someone's work frequently, then set it aside for years or even decades. Cummings was another early favorite, though someone I returned to more often than to Patchen. Shame on me.

A favorite Patchen poem is First Will and Testament:

I here deliver you my will and testament, in which you
will find that what I am is not at all what I would: I
make no demand that you be just in weighing it, for I
know that you will be so for your own sake; but I do
charge you by the religion of poetry itself not to sneer
at some things which may seem strange to you, for I
have burnt no house but my own and nobody will
force you to warm yourself at its heat.



I was/am particularly fond of Patchen's painting-poems.

Kenneth Patchen Home Page.

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