Life

Patchen was innate inside Niles, Ohio. He attended Alexander Meiklejohn's Experimental College for 1 month, so a University of Wisconsin. For lot of his life Patchen suffered from either the spinal disorder which driven him extreme painful sensation. Patchen espoused anarchism and pacifism, and very much of his operate opposes war. He was against U.S. involvement within World War II, believing that the high ideals of protecting democracy were betrayed by political intrigue & senseless violence.

Career

Around 1942 Patchen collaborated with a composer John Cage on the radio play The City Wears The Slouch Hat. In the early fifties he pioneered an artform which combined spoken poetry & jazz. Charles Mingus was one of his better-known collaborators. This was alluded to inside Mingus' book, Below a Underdog, & a original liner notes from either a Columbia LP, Mingus Ah Um. There is no known recordings of this particular collaboration come within being.

Moe Ash of Folkways Records mass produced a few recordings of Patchen reading his poetry & extract from either one of his novels. These recordings were freed when "Kenneth Patchen Reads with Jazz in Canada" (1959), "Selected Poems of Kenneth Patchen" (1960), & "Kenneth Patchen Reads His Love Poems" (freed 1961). "From Albion Moonlight" was recorded late at Patchen's page but not freed until 1972 by Folkways. Several of his verse form develop been placed to music by David Bedford. Composer Kyle Gann has set his voice reading the text to music (view in the image below) & fiddler Carla Kihlstedt set a text on the "Patchen" track of her solo Tzadik release Two Foot Front yard. He was an influence on the beat movement.

Bibliography

Before a Brave, 1936 The Journal of Albion Moonlight, 1941 Selected Verse form, 1946 Sleepers Awake, 1946 CCCLXXIV Verse form, 1948 Poems of Humor & Protest, 1949 Fables & More Little Tales, 1953 The Love Verse form of Kenneth Patchen, 1960