Hurrah for Anything: Poems and Drawings.

Jonathan Williams, 1957. Hardcover First Edition Thus; unstated. Very Good in Wraps: shows indications of careful use: black stains along the front hinge of the front panel; a bit of grease-like staining at the upper corner of the first fifteen pages of text; light wear to the extremities; moderate rubbing and faint soiling (besides those already noted) and smudging to the wrapper covers; the binding is square and secure; the text is clean. Flawed, but remains structurally sound and tightly bound: a sturdy, reasonably presentable copy of this classic Patchen work . NOT a Remainder, Book-Club, or Ex-Library. 8vo. 62pp. Jargon 21. First Edition Thus; unstated. Paperback: Perfect Wraps. Here are wonderful little poems . . . poems of piercing, tender sense . . . poems of the rarest, most luminous nonsense . . . poems which could only have come from the unpredictable and always exciting pen of Kenneth Patchen. Kenneth Patchen (1911 – 1972) was an American poet and novelist. He experimented with different forms of writing and incorporated painting, drawing, and jazz music into his works, which were often 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 over the San Francisco Renaissance and the Beat Generation. Patchen's first book of poetry, Before the Brave, was published by Random House in 1936. His earliest collections of poetry were his most political and led to his being championed, in the 1930s, as a "Proletariat Poet". This description, which Patchen rejected, never stuck since his work varied widely in subject, style and form. As his career progressed, Patchen continued to push himself into more and more experimental styles and forms, developing, along with writers such as Langston Hughes and Kenneth Rexroth, what came to be known as jazz poetry. He also experimented with his childlike "painted poems," many of which were to be published posthumously in the 1984 collection What Shall We Do Without Us. After the appearance of his first book, he and Miriam traveled to the Southwest, moving on to Hollywood in 1938 where he tried, unsuccessfully, writing film scripts and worked for the WPA. His next book of poems First Will and Testament drew the attention of James Laughlin, then launching New Directions Publishing as a student at Harvard. Laughlin's decision to publish Patchen's work started a relationship that would last for the remainder of both men's careers. For a short time, in 1939, Patchen even took an office job working for New Directions. In addition to their professional relationship, Patchen and Laughlin also became good friends. Patchen pioneered "the drawing-and-poem form" as well as the painting-and-poem form and produced over a thousand "painted books", special copies of his own works with original paintings on the covers. His many hundreds of drawings and paintings have been described as being reminiscent of Blake and Klee. During the course of a long and varied career, he also tried his hand at writing experimental novels such as The Journal of Albion Moonlight and The Memoirs of A Shy Pornographer, as well as the radio play The City Wears A Slouch Hat. Patchen's Collected Poems was first published in 1969, just a few years prior to his death.