What Shall We Do Without Us Signed 1st Edition

by Kenneth Patchen

Gathers picture poems by the Ohio-born writer and artist and offers a brief appreciation of Patchen and his work

Genres: Poetry, Art

Hardcover

First published September 1, 1984

About the author

Kenneth Patchen was an American poet and novelist. He experimented with different forms of writing and incorporated painting, drawing, and jazz music into his works, which have been compared with those of William Blake and Walt Whitman. Patchen's biographer wrote that he "developed in his fabulous fables, love poems, and picture poems a deep yet modern mythology that conveys a sense of compassionate wonder amidst the world's violence." Along with his friend and peer Kenneth Rexroth, he was a central influence on the San Francisco Renaissance and the Beat Generation.

Reviews

[Jennifer Juffer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I seriously do not know how differently my life would be if I'd never been introduced to Kenneth Patchen.
That being said, I'm fond of his artistic talent, unique to him.
However, I love it ONLY because it is by Kenneth Patchen.

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a wonderful collection of Patchen images in full color. Laughlin provides a stellar afterword essay with personal observations having known him as an editor and dear friend. Beautiful volume.

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

What Shall We Do Without Us? is a posthumous collection of Kenneth Patchen's picture poems. Frankly, it is the only collection of Patchen's picture poems that does the poet justice, being the only collection (as far as I know) to present them in full colour. Here are a few of my favourites...


All / as once / is what eternity is



IN / THE / LONG / RUN / This is / a race / where everybody / ends up / in a tie, sorta



I PRO- / CLAIM / THIS / INTER- / NATIONAL / SHUT / YOUR BIG / FAT / FLAPPING / MOUTH / WEEK



I have a funny / feeling / that some very / peculiar-looking / cre / atures / out there / are watching us



They Don't Seem To / Understand That / Unless Someone / Does / Nothing / Soon
The / Sky'll / Sure / Not Be / All / That's Up



IT'S / ALWAYS / TOO SOON / OR / TOO LATE / Fact is,
The train / don't come / on time / for / nobody
except / those who / should walk / all the way / to hell on their / own backs



All things are / all things / True? / And if / not, / how not . . . / Then, my / little two-legged flea, / name me one / single thing / that is not
all / things! / Eh?



What Shall We / Do Without Us?


What Shall We Do Without Us? also contains a substantial afterword by Patchen's friend, poet/publisher a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... Laughlin, entitled "Remembering Kenneth Patchen"...

Sometimes it is strange what the memory retains. Where are the pieces that the film editor cut and dropped on the cutting room floor? I think I knew Kenneth Patchen for about thirty-three years. That would be from old letters; I never kept a diary. And the scenes of Miriam and Kenneth which survive are not in narrative sequence. They jump around in time, a flickering black and white film. There isn't much sound, though I can hear Kenneth's deep, deliberate slow voice and Miriam's liquid laughter. Surely it must have been Miriam's laughter which kept Kenneth going through those years of agony when his back was constant pain and the pain was battering his spirit.
The first scene show Patchen and his young wife Miriam at the Oikemuses' farm near Concord, Massachusetts. That would be in 1938. I had been corresponding with Kenneth for over a year, because I was impressed by his first book of poems, Before the Brave, which Random House published in 1936. The writer of the jacket copy, who was not off the mark, spoke of Patchen's "social and revolutionary principles," and said that "he scorns the devices of his poetic elders and seeks by experimentation new and more dynamic verse forms." Not exactly Bennett Cerf's kind of book, but it certainly was mine. So I was happy when Random House let him go and he signed on with New Directions. His first book with us was First Will and Testament in 1939.
[...]

[Cynthia Yoder · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this years ago and wish I hadn't given the book away! Full of great poetry, sentiments and drawings.

[Max Nemtsov · Rating 5 out of 5]

Как бы официальная — и посмертная — коллекция картинок Пэтчена. А главное — превосходный текст Джеймза Локлина о нем.

[Larry · Rating 5 out of 5]

This excellent, if far too short collection of selected picture poems by Patchen is a must have for Patchen acolytes, and anyone interested in the intersection between pictures and words. Patchen may not have 'invented' the 'picture poem', but I can't think of anyone else who so radically made the form his own.

Note, these are only color repros. There are other collections of black & white drawings out there, and New Directions has two new picture poem collections planned to come out soon (the names escape me).

[Sean A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

brutiful and touching.