Significant archive of rare and important materials related to the experimental American poet and novelist Kenneth Patchen, from the collection of musician, writer, and critic Tony Glover. Patchen, whose protest writing, humor, and modern myth-making imagery anticipated the work of Bob Dylan, was a central influence on the San Francisco Renaissance and the Beat Generation. In a 1997 interview, the writer Bernard Kops observed: 'I think Kenneth Patchen was too early for his own good. Had Kenneth Patchen come twenty years later he would have been saluted with the Beatniks and with the Dharma Bums. He would have belonged to those people who changed their society. I mean, you could say that he was the beginning of Bob Dylan.'
Highlights include:
- A rare out-of-series 'painted' edition of Panels for the Walls of Heaven, published by Bern Porter in 1946, signed inside the rear board in black felt tip, "One of the 'Over-runs' from the 150 copy Painted Edition of this book. Out of Series, Kenneth Patchen." Bound in original thick blue-painted boards.
- A first edition of Sleepers Awake, published by in New York by Padell, 1946, hardcover with dust jacket, signed and inscribed on the first free end page in thick blue felt tip, "For David & Karen Glover, with every good wish, 24-6-64—Palo Alto, Kenneth Patchen."
- A fifth edition of The Journal of Albion Moonlight, published in New York by Padell in 1946, hardcover with dust jacket, signed and inscribed on the first free end page in thick red felt tip by Kenneth Patchen, "For Karen & David Glover, all the good wishes of Miriam & Kenneth Patchen."
- More than 40 pieces of correspondence from his wife and muse, Miriam Patchen, including handwritten and typed letters, cards, and postcards, often artistically rendered. Most letters include their original mailing envelopes. These significant letters offer intimate glimpses into Patchen's life and work.
- Two hand-colored silkscreen broadsides of Patchen's 'picture-poems,' entitled "The Moment" and "To Whomever." Both framed.
- A box of Glover's research notes about Patchen and his works, including a few of Glover's typed drafts of articles about the Patchen (one with an attached slip from the Evergreen Review, declining to publish the piece). Plus Glover's card index tray filled with cards bearing typed notes about Patchen's body of work, with reviews, publishing data, press mentions, and assorted other blurbs.
Unsigned books by and about Patchen:
- An Astonished Eye Looks Out Of The Air (second impression of 1,950 copies, Untide Press, 1944)
- Aflame and Afun of Walking Faces (New Directions Paperback, 1970)
- Awash With Roses: The Collected Love Poems of Kennedy Patchen (Bottom Dog Press, 1991)
- Because It Is (New Directions Paperback (second printing), 1960)
- But Even So (New Directions Paperback, 1968)
- Cloth of the Tempest (second edition of 2500 copies, Padell, 1948)
- First Will & Testament (Wehman Bros., 1948)
- Hallelujah Anyway (New Directions Paperback, 1967)
- In Quest of Candlelighters (New Directions Paperback, 1972)
- Kenneth Patchen: 1911-1972, An Annotated Descriptive Bibliography by Richard G. Morgan (Paul P. Appel, 1978)
- Memoirs of a Shy Pornographer (New Directions, 1945)
- Memoirs of a Shy Pornographer (New Directions Paperback, 1945)
- Memoirs of a Shy Pornographer (City Lights Books, 1958)
- Outlaw of the Lowest Planet (Grey Walls Press, 1946)
- Patchen: Man of Anger and Light by Henry Miller (Padell, 1946)
- Patchen: The Last Interview by Gene Detro (Capra Press, 1976)
- Patchen's Lost Plays edited by Richard G. Morgan (Capra Press, 1977)
- Pictures of Life and Death: 26 Poems (Padell, 1946)
- Poem-Scapes (Jonathan Williams, 1958)
- Poemscapes and A Letter to God (New Directions Paperback, 1958)
- Poems of Humor & Protest (sixth printing, City Lights Books,1959)
- Red Wine and Yellow Hair (New Directions, 1949)
- See You in the Morning (Padell, 1947)
- Selected Poems of Kenneth Patchen (New Directions Paperback, 1957)
- Selected Poems of Kenneth Patchen (third printing, enlarged edition, New Directions, 1957)
- Sleepers Awake (second printing, New Directions Paperback, 1969)
- The Argument of Innocence (Scrimshaw Press, 1976)
- The Collected Poems of Kenneth Patchen (New Directions Paperback, 1968)
- The Dark Kingdom (second printing, Ganis and Harris, 1948)
- The Famous Boating Party (New Directions, 1954)
- The Love Poems of Kenneth Patchen (City Lights Books, 1960
- The Journal of Albion Moonlight (New Directions Paperback, 1961)
- They Keep Riding Down All the Time (Padell, 1946)
- We All Have Something To Say To Each Other by David Meltzer (Auerhahn Press, 1962)
- When We Were Here Together (New Directions, 1957)
- Wonderings (New Directions Paperback, 1971)
Other ephemera includes: a program for the 1974 'Hallelujah Anyway' exhibition at the University of North Dakota; an issue of 'Anarchy 34' from 1963, with a piece on Patchen; and three examples of the prospectus for 'Jargon 50: But Even So.'
In overall very good to fine condition.
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