Kenneth Patchen: Painted Books and Picture-Poems March 21, 2010

Already an established writer known for his pacifist sympathies and the 1941 anti-war novel Journal of Albion Moonlight, Kenneth Patchen (1911-1972) and his wife, Miriam, settled in the Telegraph Hill neighborhood of San Francisco in 1950. They became friendly with Lawrence Ferlinghetti, founder of the City Lights publishing company and bookstore and Patchen became a contributor to Ferlinghetti's Pocket Poets series. In 1959, a serious and inoperable back ailment required Patchen to be confined to bed for the rest of his life. Undeterred, he continued to be an innovator, producing picture-poems (fusions of original poetry and paintings) as well as special editions of his books for which he painted and decorated the covers.