Access
Accruals
Acquisition Information
Alternative Forms of Material Available
Biographical Note
Chronology
Preferred Citation
Finding aid revision statement
Related Material
Additional Kenneth Patchen Archive collections at UCSC
Related Collections Elsewhere
Scope and Contents Note
Separated Material
Publication Rights
Contributing Institution:
University of California, Santa Cruz
Title: Kenneth Patchen papers
Creator:
Patchen, Kenneth, 1911-1972
Identifier/Call Number: MS.160
Physical Description:
80 Linear Feet
80 boxes
Date (inclusive): 1929-1989
Date (bulk): 1929-1972
Abstract: This collection contains biographical
material, correspondence, manuscripts, bound first editions, rare silkscreen and painted
book editions, painted poems, works of art including illustrations, paintings, papier-mâché
sculptures and decorated furniture, scrapbooks, photographs, slides, recordings, musical
scores, and clippings documenting the creative work and literary spirit of Kenneth Patchen,
as well as personal triumphs and struggles shared with his wife Miriam Patchen.
General Physical Description note: 35 linear feet and 151 painted
poems
Language of Material:
English .
Access
Collection is open for research.
Access to Series 6: Painted Poems is restricted due to physical condition. Access to Series
4: Painted Books:
In Peaceable Caves is also restricted. Please
consult the Head of Special Collections and Archives for more information.
Accruals
Additions to the archive acquired through various auction houses and gifts between
1980-1997;
A generous donation from the Friends of the Library enabled a purchase of Richard Wirtz
Emerson outgoing correspondence in June 1988.
Small gifts received from Laurence Ferlinghetti, consisting of two letters from Kenneth
Patchen to Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and a painted book
Hurrah for Anything,
1989;
The Echoes, 1929, Warren G. Harding High School Yearbook from Vivian
Pemberton, 1988; Framed painting from Allan and Donna Campo, 1995; Framed silkscreen print
from Lynda M. Akin, 1999
Acquisition Information
Collection purchased from Miriam Patchen over a ten year period between 1975-1985.
Alternative Forms of Material Available
The Painted Poems are fragile. Researchers are required to view reproduction slide, or
photo print copies. Transparencies are available for publishing purposes only.
Restricted access to Painted Book
In Peaceable Caves.
Microfilm is available for research use.
Biographical Note
Kenneth Patchen (1911-1972) was an American poet and novelist who incorporated painting,
drawing, and jazz music into his written works. He married Miriam Oikemus in 1934. Patchen's
poetry publications include
Wonderings (1971),
But Even So
(1968),
Poems of Humor and Protest (1960),
To Say If You Love
Someone
(1959),
and Selected Poems (1946). Patchen's peers and
collaborators included Henry Miller, E.E. Cummings, Kenneth Rexroth, and John Cage, and he
was an influence on poets of the Beat Generation including Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence
Ferlinghetti.
Kenneth Patchen lived in "the era of the are-nothings who have it all".
Kenneth Patchen's life was a celebration of love of poetry and of his wife, Miriam.
The deep-seated love of words, their rhythms and meanings, started at the early age of 12
and lasted over five decades. During these creative years, he was constantly driven to
expand and challenge the boundaries of the literary landscape. The over forty volumes of
prose and poetry cover expressive nuances from a grave commentary on the world's social
conditions to lighthearted tales, from traditionally composed verse to illustrated
poems.
He spoke of abhorrence towards injustice and cruelty of men,
"From my high love I look at that poor world there;
I know that murder is the first
prince in that tribe." of compassion towards all living things,
"Every man is me, I am his brother.
No man is my enemy. I am everyman and he is in
and of me.
This is my faith, my strength, my deepest hope, and my only belief." and of
an enduring faith in the survival of beauty,
"Who'll that be,
Your little sleepy wren?
Feathers as pretty as a snowfall's
shirt...
O, airfolk at their courtin',
Angelwalkin' on th' sea,
O my little
honey, you wonder me." His final feat was the 'Painted Poems', his visually charged odes to
life.
Kenneth Frederick Patchen was born in Warren, Ohio, on Dec 13, 1911 to Wayne and Eva
Patchen. He was the third child of six children. His father was a steelworker with a quiet
Presbyterian demeanor and mother Eva, a devout Catholic of Scottish descent. Surrounded by
the industrial milieu, Patchen became aware early on of the hardships of the American
working-class families. He witnessed the violent Youngstown steel strike of 1916-1917, and
experienced the death of his two sisters. Poetry became his emotional outlet.
Patchen graduated from Warren G. Harding High School in 1929 after four active years of
excellence in scholarship and competitive sport. His formal education continued for another
year and a half. He attended the University of Wisconsin in Alexander Meiklejohn's
Experimental College and at Commonwealth College before setting out "on a road" in 1930. He
drifted around in United States and Canada working menial jobs, but always writing.
In 1934 Patchen married Miriam Oikemus. They had met a year earlier at a Christmas party.
She was 17, he was 21. The poet's love affair with his wife was enduring, lasting for 38
years. Though he dedicated all his published works to Miriam, his devotion is more evident
in the numerous poems written to and about her;
"23rd Street Runs into Heaven" You stand near the window as lights wink
On along the
street. Somewhere a trolley, taking
Shop girls and clerks home, clatters through
To find the garbage cans sealed; newsboys
Begin their murder-into-pennies round.
We are shut in, secure for a little, safe until
Tomorrow. You slip your dress off, roll
down
Your stockings, carful against runs. Naked now,
With soft light on soft
flesh, you pause
For a moment; turn and face me-
Smile in a way that only women
know
Who have lain long with their lover
And are made more virginal. Our supper is
plain but we are very wonderful. The first years of their marriage, from the mid 1930's
until 1947, were spent in an avant-garde setting of Greenwich Village, New York. There the
world saw the publication of Patchen's most renowned work,
The Journal of Albion
Moonlight
(1941), an antiwar novel, in which he plainly declared his pacifistic
beliefs, condemning all war efforts of the time. Patchen remembers "I was the only poet of
reputation who took an unequivocal position against the war". Even though his pacifist tone
during the WW II earned him the hostility of many, he regained his popularity among the
youth in the 1960's, who were openly rising up against the war in Vietnam.
Patchen's early writings were shaped by the European modern literary movements. Influenced
by poets Guillaume Apollinaire and F. T. Marinetti, his writing became rich with nonlinear
representations of words stimulated with visual accents, varied typefaces, lettering and
imagery. The departure from the traditional typesetting techniques appeared already in his
second book
First Will and Testament (1939). Throughout the 1940's, Patchen
continued to develop the spatial orientation and combination of pictorial elements in his
works, as seen in
The Cloth of Tempest (1941),
Pictures of Life and
Death
(1946), and
Sleepers Awake (1945).
During the 1950's Patchen's writing became less oppressive and filled with angst. The
change of tone is first seen with the publishing of
Fables (1953). Miriam and
Kenneth had just recently moved to San Francisco, and the new location appears to have
played a role in Patchen's more humorous and optimistic writing style. Also, color appears
in his works in the form of painted book and silkscreen editions, and the painted poems.
Their artistry was later recognized by many prestigious museums including The
Oakland Museum, Oakland, California; Corcoran Gallery,
Washington DC; Dokumenta of Modern Art, Kassel, Germany, which
exhibited these works between 1970-1990.
The Painted Book series initially began out of economical necessity in 1942. Unable to
publish an expensive fine print edition of
The Dark Kingdom, Patchen's
aesthetic concerns propelled him to create individually designed and hand-painted book
covers. There were a total of nine titles, ranging from 50 to 108 copies each, made of these
handsome one of a kind covers.
The silkscreen portfolio editions,
Glory Never Guesses (1955), and
A
Surprise for the Bagpipe Player
(1956) represent Patchen's creative midpoint,
illustrated poems that stretch the boundaries of a traditional book format. The unbound
editions were produced from the original manuscript pages screened onto handmade Japanese
paper in a variety of textures and colors. A total of 200 copies were hand printed by
Patchen's friend printer Frank Bacher in San Francisco.
Patchen's most visually stunning work, the Painted Poems, surfaced during his most
physically trying time in the 1960's. In these streamlined poems populated with imaginative
creatures, Patchen spoke increasingly of beauty, humor and fun. A mood of anger and despair
at human cruelty is present but doesn't dominate the material. The poems incorporate a wide
array of colors, heavy with tempera and paper pasted laid onto an old handmade rag paper.
The sheets, dating back to Napoleonic France, were originally used to press botanical
specimens. Patchen received the rag paper from John Tate, a botanist at Stanford, who had
rescued them from being thrown away. Miriam recalls that the painting format of the poems
grew out of Kenneth's pure awe towards the beauty of the paper itself. He finished
approximately 200 individual manuscript pages of the painted poems during his life. Even
left over paper was utilized. Patchen molded the scraps into papier-mâché creatures, or
"an-imals", as the couple called them.
Kenneth Patchen's medical history was a nightmare. He spend most of his life in severe back
pain which resulted from a spinal injury in 1937 when he tried to help separate two collided
cars. The injury was first wrongly diagnosed as arthritis. Later he found out that the pain
was caused by a slipped disc. He underwent spinal surgery in the 1950's, which finally
brought relief for a period of three years, from 1956-1959. During these pain-free years he
toured in the United States and Canada doing poetry readings to jazz, an art form he
pioneered back in 1938. Allyn Ferguson, a musician and a bandleader, had discovered
Patchen's early experimentations of poetry to jazz music in 1957. Ferguson remembers, "When
I finally met Patchen at Stanford, I suggested that his poems and our sounds might make
interesting recordings. We opened at the Black Hawk as a tryout for an album, and wowed the
audience." The two men recorded "Kenneth Patchen Reads His Poetry With the Chamber Jazz
Sextet" under Cadence Records in 1958.
After a corrective surgery gone wrong in 1959, Patchen was confined to bed for the last
thirteen years of his life. The couple had moved to Palo Alto, California, where their lives
became a constant battle against physical pain and isolation. In spite of the struggles,
Patchen continued to write and paint until his final days. On January 8, 1972, Kenneth
Patchen died of heart failure leaving behind a rich legacy of a poet-artist,
pacifist-proletarian values. He was the champion of anti-novels, concrete poetry, tales and
verses, as well as a pioneer of painted poems, and poetry with jazz.
Further reading:
-
Smith, Larry R.
Kenneth Patchen. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1978.
(Twayne's United States Authors Series Number 292.) Critical biographical study with
bibliography.
-
Morgan, Richard G.
Kenneth Patchen: A Bibliography.Mamroneck, New
York: Paul P. Appel, 1978.
-
Morgan, Richard G., editor.
Kenneth Patchen: A Collection of
Essays.
New York: AMS Press Inc., 1977.
-
Veres, Peter.
The Argument of Innocence: A Selection from the Arts of
Kenneth Patchen.
Oakland, California: The Scrimshaw Press, 1976.
-
Detro, Gene.
Patchen: The Last Interview. Santa Barbara,
California: Capra Press, 1976 (Capra Chapbook Series Number 40)
Chronology
1911-1972:
1911 |
Born December 13th in Niles, Ohio to Wayne and Eva Patchen, third of six
children. His father, Wayne Patchen, was a steelworker and Protestant; mother Eva
McQuade Patchen raised children as Catholic. Ancestors came from Scotland, Ireland,
and France.
|
1926-1929 |
Attends Warren G. Harding High School; Active in football and track team, debate
club, orchestra, and part of yearbook and school newspaper staff.
|
1929 |
Worked in a steel mill to earn money for college.
Poem
Permanence accepted for
New York Times.
Attends
University of Wisconsin in Alexander Meilejohn's Experimental College for one
year.
|
1930 |
Attends a semester at Commonwealth College in Mena, Arkansas. |
1930-1933 |
Patchen set "on the road", traveling in U.S. and Canada writing, reading, and
working odd jobs as migrant field worker, janitor, and caretaker.
|
1932 |
Poem
Lenin published in magazine
Rebel Poet.
Worked in a rubber factory in Boston where befriended writers Conrad Aiken, John
Wheelwright, and Malcolm Cowley
|
1934 |
Married Miriam Oikemus on June 28th. Moved to Greenwich Village where they live
in a small apartment while he writes poetry, reviews for
New Republic
and works on the WPA's writer's project on the
New York Guide
Book
.
|
1935 |
Patchens moved to artist cottage in Rhinebeck, New York. |
1936 |
Before the Brave, first book of poems published by Random House.
Receives a Guggenheim Fellowship.
Moves to Phoenix, then Santa Fe.
|
1937 |
Patchens in Los Angeles working on film scripts and WPA writer's
project.
First serious back trouble after helping to release cars in an
accident.
|
1938 |
Patchens returned to Concord, Mass.
Met James Laughlin and Ezra Pound
|
1939 |
Moved to Laughlin's place in Norfolk, Conn., where he did accounting and Miriam
shipping for New Directions Publishers.
First Will and Testament,
and story
Bury Them in God published by New Directions
|
1940 |
Returned to Greenwich Village. Befriends with e.e. cummings, Henry Miller, Robert
Duncan, Maxwell Bodenheim, and Kenneth Rexroth.
Throughout the 1940's Patchen's
writings appear in anarchist-pacifist publication such as
Illuminati,
Ark,
Retort,
Now,
Contour,
Experimental Review
|
1941 |
The Journal of Albion Moonlight, Patchen's pacifist anti-novel
published through subscription sales with Walpole Printing; book launched at Gotham
Book Mart, New York.
|
1942 |
The Dark Kingdom, first of 'painted book' series with individually
painted covers by the author.
The Teeth of The Lion, collection of
poems published by New Directions in Poet of the Month Series.
Collaborated with
John Cage on a radio play
City Wears a Slouch Hat; first airing May
31st.
|
1943 |
Cloth of the Tempest, a book of poems and drawings published by
Harper Brothers.
Won Ohioana Award.
Back injury kept Patchen out of war, and
remained a loud conscientious objector.
|
1945 |
Memoir of a Shy Pornographer, an anti-novel published by New
Directions.
|
1946 |
An Astonished Eye Looks Out of the Air, poems published by Walport
C.O. Camp.
Outlaw of the Lowest Planet, poems published by Grey
Walls Press, London.
Sleepers Awake, anti-novel published by
Padell.
Pictures of Life and Death, poems published by
Padell.
They Keep Riding Down All the Time, prose published by
Padell.
Henry Miller's
Patchen: Man of Anger and Light, the first
substantial literary criticism of Patchen.
|
1947 |
To Say If You Love Someone, selected love poems published by
Decker Press.
Patchens lived at Old Lyme, Conn.
|
1948 |
See You in the Morning, prose published by
Padell.
CCLXXIV Poems, published by Padell.
|
1949 |
Red Wine and Yellow Hair, poems published by New
Directions.
|
1950 |
Writers Committee (T.S. Eliot, William Carlos Williams, e.e. cummings, Marianne
Moore etc.) raised funds for Patchen's first major spinal operation.
Jonathan
Williams transcribed
Fables at Old Lyme.
|
1951 |
Moved to San Francisco's North Beach area. |
1952 |
Orchards, Thrones, and Caravans, poems published by The Print
Workshop, San Francisco.
|
1953 |
Fables and Other Little Tales, prose published by Jonathan
Williams.
|
1954 |
Receives Shelley Memorial Award.
Poems of Humor and Protest
published by City Lights Pocket Poets series with a poet-friend Lawrence
Ferlinghetti.
The Famous Boating Party, prose poems published by
New Directions.
|
1955 |
Glory Never Guesses, silkscreen portfolio of poems and drawings
reproduced by Frank Bacher.
|
1956 |
Moved to Palo Alto, California.
Spinal fusion at Palo Alto
Clinic.
Surprise for the Bagpipe Player, silkscreen portfolio
reproduced by Frank Bacher.
|
1957 |
Poetry-jazz movement launched, reading with jazz groups up and down the West
Coast until 1959.
Hurrah For Anything, drawings-and-poems published
by Jonathan Williams.
We Were Here Together, poems published by New
Directions.
The Selected Poems, enlarged edition published by New
Directions.
Kenneth Patchen Reads With The Chamber Jazz Sextet,
recording released by Cadence Records.
|
1958 |
Poemscapes, prose poems published by Jonathan Williams.
|
1959 |
Kenneth Patchen Reads With Jazz in Canada, recording with Alan
Neil Quartet released by Folkways Records.
Don't Look Now,
jazz-play premiered by
The Troupe Theater in Palo Alto.
"Surgical
Mishap" leaves Patchen in pain and almost completely bedridden for the rest of his
life.
|
1960 |
Because It Is, poems-and drawings published by New
Directions.
The Love Poems of Kenneth Patchen, published by City
Lights.
Inspired by an ancient rag paper given by Stanford biologist Norman
Thomas; began new work on picture-poems.
|
1961 |
Kenneth Patchen Reads His Love Poems, recording released by
Folkways Records.
Selected Poems of Kenneth Patchen, recording
released by Folkways Records.
|
1966 |
Hallelujah Anyway, picture poems published by New
Directions.
Doubleheader, published by New Directions.
[Compilation of "Hurrah for Anything", "Poemscapes",and "A Letter to God"]
|
1967 |
Receives $10,000 award from the National Foundation of the Arts and Humanities
for "life-long contribution to American letters"
|
1968 |
But Even So, picture-poems published by New
Directions.
Collected Poems, published by New Directions.
|
1969 |
One man art show at Corcoran Gallery, Washington D.C.
"Homage to Kenneth
Patchen", an article in
The Outsider (1968-1969).
|
1970 |
Aflame And Afun Of Walking Faces, selection from
Fables with drawings, published by New Directions.
|
1971 |
Wonderings, picture-poems and drawing poems published by New
Directions.
|
1972 |
Dies of heart attack on January 8 in Palo Alto home.
Memorial Reading at City
Lights Poets Theatre, February 2nd with Robert Duncan, Gary Snyder, Al Young, Lawrence
Ferlinghetti, Morton Marcus, etc.
In Quest Of Candlelighters
containing two prose works,
Panels for the Walls of Heaven and
They Keep Riding Down All the Time, published by New
Directions.
The Journal Of Albion Moonlight, recording released
by Folkways Records.
|
Posthumous Years:
1975 |
University of California, Santa Cruz purchases Kenneth Patchen papers. |
1976 |
The Argument of Innocence: A Selection from the Graphic Arts of Kenneth
Patchen
, ed. Peter Veres; foreword by Miriam Patchen, published by Scrimshaw
Press.
Patchen: The Last Interview with Gene Detro; an afterword
by Henry Miller, published by Capra Press.
|
1977 |
Patchen's Lost Plays (
Don't Look Now and
The City Wears a Slouch Hat) published by Capra
Press.
Kenneth Patchen: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed.
Richard Morgan.
Tribute to Kenneth Patchen, Enithatmon Press,
England.
|
1978 |
Kenneth Patchen, first critical biography by Larry Smith.
|
1980 |
Still Another Pelican in the Breadbox; early writings, Pig Iron
Press, Youngstown.
|
1984 |
What Shall We Do Without Us, picture-poems in full color published
by Sierra Club Books.
|
1987 |
Kenneth Patchen exhibitions in Warren, Ohio, and Kassel, Germany. |
1997 |
Patchen tribute at the Naropa Institute, Boulder, Colorado. |
1998 |
Exhibition of pictures at Poetry Library, London; and Event at the Tate Gallery,
London.
|
1999 |
Exhibition of silkscreen prints at Centro Studi Americani in Rome. |
2000 |
Kenneth Patchen : Rebel Poet in America, authorised biography by
Larry Smith, published by Bottom Dog Press.
|
Preferred Citation
Kenneth Patchen papers. MS 160. Special Collections and Archives, University Library,
University of California, Santa Cruz.
Finding aid revision statement
This finding aid was revised in the Reparative Archival Redescription Project in 2021-2022.
Previous versions of this finding aid are available upon request.
Related Material
In addition to the Kenneth Patchen Papers, the Kenneth Patchen Archive includes the
following related collections.
Additional Kenneth Patchen Archive collections at UCSC
Collections include:
-
Identifier/Call Number: MS 161
Title: Miriam Patchen papers,
Date: 1930-2000
-
Identifier/Call Number: MS 163
Title: Kathryn Winslow collection,
Date: 1950-1988
-
Identifier/Call Number: MS 164
Title: Alan and Beatrice Parker collection,
Date: 1922-1969
-
Identifier/Call Number: MS 165
Title: James Boyer May correspondence,
Date: 1956-1972
-
Identifier/Call Number: MS 166
Title: Kenneth Patchen Festival records,
Date: 1927-1991
-
Identifier/Call Number: MS 167
Title: Chester Kessler papers,
Date: 1951-1952
-
Identifier/Call Number: MS 168
Title: Fred Wright correspondence,
Date: 1972-1990
-
Identifier/Call Number: MS 169
Title: Charles and Barbara Paine collection,
Date: 1957-1983
-
Identifier/Call Number: MS 170
Title: William M. Roth correspondence,
Date: 1941-1965
-
Identifier/Call Number: MS 172
Title: Peter Veres papers,
Date: 1973-1977
-
Identifier/Call Number: MS 173
Title: "Kenneth Patchen: Hurrah for Anything" film
production records,
Date: 1982
-
Identifier/Call Number: MS 175
Title: William Plumley collection,
Date: 1942-1972
-
Identifier/Call Number: MS 176
Title: Tom and Rita Bottoms collection,
Date: 1946-1958
-
Identifier/Call Number: MS 177
Title: Johnny Wittwer papers,
Date: 1959
Related Collections Elsewhere
Additional information can be found in these related collections held by other
repositories:
- Cummings, E. E. (Edward Estlin). Houghton Library, Harvard College Library. (Papers,
1894-1962).
- Laughlin, James. Houghton Library, Harvard College Library. (Papers, 1914-).
- Lawrence Ferlinghetti. The Bancroft Library, Berkeley. (Papers
1919-[on-going]).
- City Lights Books. The Bancroft Library, Berkeley.(Records, 1953-1970).
- New Directions Publishing Corp. Houghton Library, Harvard College Library. (Records,
1933-1997).
- New Directions Publishing Corp. Manuscripts and proofs of New Directions books.
Houghton Library, Harvard College Library. (1937-1997).
Scope and Contents Note
The Kenneth Patchen Papers contains biographical material, including obituaries, awards,
legal documents, papers relating to poetry-jazz and exhibit activities, and various printed
material written about Patchen; a substantial collection of outgoing and incoming
correspondence covering 1930-1970; manuscripts, including incomplete and complete holographs
and typescripts to most of his published works, as well as some printer and galley proofs,
notebooks and miscellany notes; published works including first editions, limited painted
book and silkscreen print editions; some 150 painted poems; collection of art work,
including drawings, illustrations, watercolor and mix media paintings, as well as sculptures
and decorative furniture; scrapbooks filled with book reviews and book advertisements of
Patchen's early works, and clippings of the poetry-jazz movement; some 80 black & white
photographs; music scores written to Patchen's text; sound recordings in cassette, record
and reel-to-reel format; and artifacts. Bulk of the material ranges from 1929-1972.
Of particular interest is a sizeable set of correspondence from James Laughlin of New
Directions covering over five decades of publisher-author relationship with the Patchens
from the 1940's through 1984; Incoming correspondence from Patchen's poet friend e.e.
cummings and his wife Marion dating from 1952 until cummings' death in 1962; Henry Miller's
letters of support to Kenneth during his early literary endeavors in 1940's; Holograph
manuscript pages and galley proofs to Patchen's most renown prose works
The Journal of Albion Moonlight and
Sleepers Awake;
the only known copy of
In Peaceable Caves; Some 150 colorful
and one-of-a kind Painted Poems, which were created during the latter part of the poet's
life summarizing Patchen's artistic and philosophical vision.
Also noteworthy is the material documenting the poetry-jazz movement in the late 1950's,
which includes personal correspondence from Kenneth to his wife Miriam while touring with
Chamber Jazz Sextet in Los Angeles and in Canada, and Harry Redl's photographs that capture
the performance atmosphere at Black Hawk. Included also are rare recorded releases of
Patchen reading his poetry with Chamber Jazz Sextet and Alan Neil Quartet.
The material is organized into nineteen series.
- Series 1. Biographical Material, 1929-1989.
- Series 2. Correspondence, ca. 1929-1984.
- Series 3. Manuscripts, ca. 1940-1971.
- Series 4. Painted Books, 1942-1958.
- Series 5. Silkscreen Prints, 1955-1956.
- Series 6. Painted Poems, 1961-1971.
- Series 7. Works of Art, undated.
- Series 8. Postcards, 1958-1968.
- Series 9. Published works, 1935-1977.
- Series 10. Scrapbooks, 1935-1965.
- Series 11. Publicity, 1939-1974.
- Series 12. Photographs, ca. 1946-1980.
- Series 13. Transparencies, 1965-1970, ca 1980.
- Series 14. Negatives, ca. 1946-1970.
- Series 15. Music Scores, 1947-1985.
- Series 16. Sound Recordings, 1957-1978
- Series 17. Microfilm, 1965.
- Series 18. Artifacts, undated.
- Series 19. Miscellany, ca. 1940
Correspondence, manuscripts and painted poems series represent the largest portion of
the primary material. Additional descriptive details are included within each series.
The Kenneth Patchen Papers is the primary collection of the Kenneth Patchen Archive, which
also includes the Chester Kessler Papers, James Boyer May Correspondence, Alan and Beatrice
Collection, William Plumley Collection, William M. Roth Correspondence, Kathryn Winslow
Collection, Johnny Wittwer Papers, and the Fred Wright Correspondence. Additional
collections are being processed and will be added as finished.
Separated Material
Books have been cataloged separately.
Cassettes and Reel-to-reel tapes have been
re-formatted and cataloged separately.
Microfilm has been transferred to Microfilm
Collection in Special Collections and Archives.
Negatives have been transferred to
Negative Collection in Special Collections and Archives.
Fragile documents have been
separated; photocopies have been made available for research use.
Publication Rights
Copyright for the items in this collection is owned by the creators and their heirs.
Reproduction or distribution of any work protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair
use requires permission from the copyright owner. It is the responsibility of the user to
determine whether a use is fair use, and to obtain any necessary permissions. For more
information see UCSC Special Collections and Archives policy on Reproduction and Use.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Scrapbooks
Biography files
Works of art
Painted books
Sound recordings
American poetry -- 20th century -- Readings with music
Jazz poetry
Personal correspondence
Poets, American -- 20th century -- Correspondence
Painting, American -- 20th
century
Authors, American -- 20th
century
Photographs
Poets, American -- 20th
century
Tempera paintings
Cummings, E. E. (Edward Estlin),
1894-1962
Cummings, Marion M. (Marion Morehouse),
1903-1969
Pound, Ezra, 1885-1972
Russell, Sanders
Russell, Bertrand, 1872-1970
Redl, Harry
Williams, Jonathan, 1929-2008
Pfeffer, Max
Patchen, Kenneth, 1911-1972
New Directions Publishing
Miller, Henry, 1891-1980
Laughlin, James, 1914-1997
Ferguson, Allyn, 1924-2010
Patchen, Miriam, 1914-2000