Hallelujah Anyway

by Kenneth Patchen

This is a book to delight the mind and the eye - the first collection of the poet Kenneth Patchen's unique and remarkable "picture-poems." As a creative form, the Patchen picture-poem is descended from the "illuminated printing" of William Blake. Blake devised an etching process for his pages of hand-lettered poems; but Patchen works more freely with watercolor, casein, inks, and other media, as he blends word and image in intricate but always visually compelling patterns of shape, color, and meaning. The fusion of two arts in Hallelujah Anyway gives us an intensification and an enlargement of the poetic process - an extra dimension - not in the limited sense of an "illustrated" poem (Patchen does not write a poem and then simply draw a picture to go with it), but as a new kind of simultaneous creativity.

Genres: Poetry, Art

100 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1966

About the author

Kenneth Patchen was an American poet and novelist. He experimented with different forms of writing and incorporated painting, drawing, and jazz music into his works, which have been 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 on the San Francisco Renaissance and the Beat Generation.

Reviews

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

2006 wrote: Patchen being among, if not, my favorite author, I was very happy to see this obscure work tucked away in the basement shelves of my new school's library. Another of his works digested and well-taken. He has an amazing way to create an entire story with a single phrase. His pictures, seem to have started abstract expressionism and his poetry inspired the beats. He is the father of modern art in my realm. Another genius.

[Aryo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved the combination of paintings with poems. Funny, weird, sometimes profound and always playful.

[Eli Rojas · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the verbal homunculi born from the cheeks

[Zack]

When I had read Patchen's work before, I found it just to out in his own world of metaphors, a little too silly maybe without enough else to really ground it. I feel like I need to explore him more after checking out this book though. It's amazing. The visual element gives me more to hold onto. The text and the images match so well.

[James Payne · Rating 1 out of 5]

Grating.

[Stacie · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Picture-poems" are my new favorite art form. Absolutely delightful.