Kenneth Patchen

Kenneth Patchen died in 1972 at the age of 61 after being bedridden for 20 years with crippling rheumatism of the spine
His poems,at least the ones he wrote back in the 30’s& 40's,are often dialectical explorations of issues seen,like Brecht,from the perspective of a revolutionary
He can be obscure but never literary
His righteous anger liberating
Its like he understood that language has to be used in a different way to counter how words have been misused by bourgeois poets
He’s described on the Patchen webpage as a ‘minor American poet’ by a bourgeois academic
I’d take that as a compliment.

Letter to the Old Men
“What have you left for us to say to you?
What have you done that we can praise?
You stand on the ice of our hatred
Your faces are turned to the wall
You have not long
It is quite late for anger
We have not time to forgive you…”
-Patchen