Kenneth Patchen's Poetics of Paint

Volume 10 Issue 1 May 2014 Kenneth patchen’s poetics of pain

Mark Silverberg

david Morris (1991), the eminent theorist of

pain’s historical and cultural life, has argued that chronic pain may well be the “characteristic mal - ady of our time” (pp. 65-66), as leprosy and plague were for the medieval world, madness for

the renaissance, and tuberculosis for the romantic era. 1 if this is the case, then American poet Kenneth patchen, long consigned to the dust - bin of literary history, may well be one of our rep - resentative or deﬁning poets. patchen’s last poems, issued from the bed of the disabled poet and col -

lected in three volumes, Hallelujah Anyway (1967), But Even So (1968), and Wonderings (1971), shape a provocative visual language for the chronic pain that framed his life and silently rav -

aged his body. this essay is a journey into what i will call patchen’s “poetics of pain,” that is, the productive literary and visual strategies that al - lowed the artist to give voice to his own suffering and at the same time to open a window on what Morris calls the “representative illness” (p. 65) of our era. 13

1 4 W a l B h s g c g e p h p c l P C a i t i p v a c a p h f c n e o c h s r t r a r h d s h n h u u u a o a a i l a a a o a o h

m a t a g a d i

o p a i i r d i r d v r r m a e p t i c t t t l m a b n n t n o o o y i r e c o

h a e g h s , r

a O e J c i s l

d l , :

s o t u a n e n n

l e

c o e

a b l

a e

a y p h a i ) o f d i ( n s p e n e f “ l i i i i

k n , n h r

l l .

s n n t a e a t c p c c

c s n a o P

e h ( e i h y p

a “ d n R b i t

d t s 2 s r W c T n ,

g c i i p p p n o o a i e p o

a b

e o n e n l r u n 0 n a d t s B a h e t r a a a

n i o p u r o s t i o f a e i c t t r o g n 0 t i o n

i e e n i i i

h e s e g o h m o r o l s s r n l n n n s t i c , ’ 2 t d c

l o g e n i r s a e h s e t

h n s e r

B f u

n m t d ) s o

e d

p (

r t

r s p a

o r e

i i s a

d P a t i m

u s p o i 1 s v i — c c n o u

. r s h v o n e

l e c e n s t

n e m s d o a 9 o a e

l n f a C h r a e e a

g a , c a a d d y y e ﬂ f l s

y , s s n i 8 g r a f

r m a r k i s

o e n h

n h f

i e

t p

a e i t d

n 3 i w n u m n t e s i n r a r e s o c h , r h c

l a b o s c a l n i e ) o

e t b

r s y o o n t r g o i a u e s p r r

o a s

t s e o

i c

n m t e b

n i e d r t p u l m P

b a s

i l s o a a u t u t i f ) a e a s s a o a d o e i

e e a

e . g n e n a .

s a

s t l t c e y f p s r

m p b g

f n

s g d r g r h e f

“ , c t t e y i I i i i

t u m e a n t

s e l h i o e a n e n i p s n

v e

n P t e o f h o e

t c r n w r r

i r n t e e r p u g , i , a h

o e

o m x p a r i t c e v n

e t O

t r r

o h b a

i l n l l t i a i r y i ) i h i

, t l e g l

s g

e s o s t m r n i o

e o d e o u

o l v o , f n h e

m a s

s a i

u d R

r n u m (

t i o t f e r t v i

t i t c

s b m s n o

h t

p B h s

h r m

n a i o s u

c k h t n s i u o u t E e c

d f r

g e h o

e n

e h c l

c e l i o i a e

e l q n t s c a a u i i

l t u n n

g t t e i e d l r ﬁ m n e n s f ﬂ a i s o s l a u a r l i

n a s a t g m s l

o s o i u e n o i e i c r l r m e p e m i a a i c s r g a i g n e c ,

d s n a t a f n x p s u e t o c s f l y ” b o

a t

t e

i e t i

t t c e e u o j f e c ” i I p r t n w a a

l i v

e e n M t m h u

t e o l o e t

t s n

l d i i p

r S d r y h o l e a d o r ( a

e r s

s d a m r e g . , e v e e s f h e e p e s l y o b c e f t

i p

m s s

s u y d i t W “ r u n l

t e

v v l , y o . a y

n e l

c u e a s e a h i n

n o

e o r E n t . i e o r c s

n 5

a i d d c c c a n d

e a y

l d w , r c f h b r A i d r h a n i n l —

5 o i u

r e d l y y c

c g

s t n i t , o ﬁ i t i n c e n p r s , g r ) s i n

f h t , k l h s a l i

t o p f o

e i h r h . c e ﬁ d c ( i e o l t s

l i d e e l T

e t n t s t e r 1 V n

i s t n

a r d o e

e n e c y r

p o i

s i t a

c i h h s i o y 9 p i n p

p d t i n

a ” n u u i z

e h — c a s o y c ( i o s e e t n c r 8 r d n h

a i j e

l o l s s n o , u i

( a o s f i u h d t i 5 i p n r

l u d d y n p n e t y

c i t c i n l a a b a r o a s ) t e a

n c

s i s . e i

y p n s t t t

n -

i o i p h s i o e a o x o 4 o o n r - a g , f l r l - o f ) g - i - - , . - - - which can express the thoughts of Hamlet and the tragedy of Lear, has no words for the shiver and the headache. … The merest schoolgirl, when she falls in love, has Shakespeare or Keats to speak her mind for her; but let a sufferer try to describe a pain in his head to a doctor and language at once runs dry” (pp. 6–7). In response to this “poverty of the language” that Woolf wrote against or back to in On Being Ill , physician Ronald Melzack developed one of the key tools in the study of pain, the McGill-Melzack Pain Questionnaire. This rating scale, developed in 1975 and still routinely used as a diagnostic tool, presents sufferers with a series

of adjectives designed to give voice or form to an expe - rience that can be most dreadful in its silent formless - ness. This dearth of language, and indeed pain’s fundamental resistance to language, is why Scarry and other theorists emphasize the high stakes involved in the project of expressing or objectifying pain—since making pain visible, they argue, is the ﬁrst essential step in controlling and even eliminating it. Although little critical attention has been paid to

his work since his death, Kenneth Patchen was one of the most popular and proliﬁc poets of the 1940s and 1950s, well known as a writer of proletarian verse and protest poetry, a visual experimentalist, and an impor - 2

tant precursor to the Beats. Born in 1911 in the indus - trial Ohio valley, Patchen came from a blue-collar family of coal miners and steel workers. His early po - etry clearly reﬂects his proletarian roots and one of his main subjects is the chronic pains of industrial poverty, as decried, for example, in the 1943 “May I Ask you a Question, Mr. Youngstown Sheet & Tube?”:

15 Mean grimy houses, shades drawn Against the yellow-brown smoke that blows in every minute of every day. And every minute of every night. to bake a cake or have a baby, With the taste of tar in your mouth. to wash clothes or ﬁx supper, With the taste of tar in your mouth. Ah, but the grand funerals … rain hitting down on the shiny hearses … (patchen, 1968, pp. 6–7)

the shiny hearses streaming out of the youngstown sheet & tube steel factory, where patchen’s father and the poet himself brieﬂy worked, are an image of the human cost of indus - trial capitalism (what patchen [1968] would later call “the rent we have to pay to live in us” [p. 281]). 3 poems like this express patchen’s (1968)

early sense of pain as something unconﬁned to in - dividual bodies or sites, but rather as a phenome - non that is social, shared, and ultimately politically and economically structured. consider “the orange Bears: childhood in an ohio

Milltown”:

the orange bears with soft friendly eyes Who played with me when i was ten, christ, before i left home they’d had their paws smashed in the rolls, their backs

16 seared by hot slag, their soft trusting Bellies kicked in, their tongues ripped out, and i went down through the woods to the smelly crick with Whitman … (p. 384)

the orange bears get their sickly colour from the ore and polluted smoke that, like the tar-ex - pressed daily from youngstown factories, engulfs everyone and everything. the melodramatic politi - cal language of these poems no doubt has had much to do with patchen’s critical neglect, since, as cary nelson (1989) argues in Repression and Recovery , critics and historians of Modernism have tended to ignore overtly political poets in favor of those more inclined to aesthetic experimentation. given patchen’s steady descent into obscurity since the 1960s, few have noted the terrible irony that one of the most vocal and mobile poets of the 1940s and 50s, the man who pio - neered the jazz and poetry movement and trav -

eled across the united states and canada performing with jazz combos, spent the last decade of his life isolated, bedridden, and in chronic pain. A disabling back injury of 1937, misdiagnosed as arthritis for 12 years, initiated a

long history of pain, periodic immobility, and in - effectual and inappropriate treatment. though spinal fusions gave him some relief, a 1959 “sur - gical mishap”—where patchen was apparently dropped from the surgical cart (smith, 2000, pp. 247–248) 4—left him nearly incapacitated until his death from a heart attack in 1972.

17 it was during these ﬁnal years of immobility, liv - ing in poverty in palo Alto, that patchen (2008) began producing his poem-paintings, a series of hand-painted and drawn poems and images which embody “the words that speak up / from the man - gled bodies / of human beings” (p. 51), (as one unti - tled visual poem puts it) in direct and startling ways. the work’s magnetic charge, like that of the best “outsider art,” comes from its odd combination of the terrifying and the whimsical. As Kenneth rexroth once described patchen’s vision, “it is as if … the owl and the pussycat were writing up hiroshima” (Morgan, p. 20). devoting his limited daily energy to his art, patchen worked from his bed on a pulley desktop rigged to rest against his knees. his crude materials (part of what give the work its rough vitality) included whatever was close at hand. Besides brushes, he used tree sprigs, kitchen utensils, and garden tools. Besides paint and pastel, he used crayon, magic marker, coffee, tea, easter egg dye, and cornstarch. patchen’s

“painful rejoicings,” as he called an earlier group of visual poems in Hurrah for Anything (1957), like the artwork of frida Kahlo or sylvia plath, provide a fascinating and potentially useful win - dow onto the experience of chronic pain outside

of the biomedical purview in which it is usually studied. By reading patchen’s unique poetics of pain, we may recover some of pain’s potential meanings—perspectives, david Morris has argued, that we’ve lost in our cultural ﬁxation on the med - ical meaning of pain.

1 9 m m t w a c l p g c r s t a i r t j m i t i m t o t t t p d o M e n u n n r h h h r h h i e o t u o n i

a i r r u c m a u e i a s m e i e a n g r s d i a e i a e t

l m e t t d u n t y n m n s e u p n t n r n d , y

c h v t n t i l

i s

u t w l e m a

d v

k z

k i r a h n p t s t

i p i p a “

s u

i p n n e e s r o n a e a i o t ,

t i

l a o r h

d b p p a , h e a x s a n o j t d s y T e n k u s p

u i o r , y

i s s u i t b

s i s t

e m p

n c

s t o o h o a ’ k n o p

t e i r e u p

t s

M & s

a o u l e e w n

h p a y g i

n l e m n l i

m i a y r i h l

s m i r y o u r o w t i

a a

r s f s g t s i

i s c o i t n d b e C (

e l t n W e o t i , t f

e t a i e

e t e u a p o o

c n

o h m r h

e i n i d a

m n o

r t u r p t r m n o f n s r i l u r g d a o f e o a

t m i

i s y f a u

i l a a k

e t c o a c

o u y n

r e t :

i l s t , m

p e n e s h c s i ”

u y a n l h b

s e u s n r

c d n c h t d ,

c , a o s t o e l

”

l l e v l

e e

h e a h r , i o l a r

o e , y

o t i 1 i l t

n f e e o

e s

w [ n c n e a u b

h h x ( s

n m

m n t s 9 u t n

m e r c t a a M c o t a

t r d — r o o p o a e p o g

t M s e h 8 f t

a e l

a t y e t w n i

i v o d f f i c d i p

e e r r s n e h a p u 3 l n o d t ﬁ l

p s e i

n h i l r r i

r y a

r o P

a a t t o u t e n u d n , r c z r p i c w i i

l e s . o

- e i y a c l y r o e

i a e r

l a f a o

p g v z d c

n a

s c n t d u b r a ] b

i i p n o x s t t n b l z s ,

i f . s p i n e , o i g e h

l l d l e a

r h

n h ,

c r i y s l ,

e b y l l r

e 2

w h , m p

s i

— e W w l a a e

s p e e

u a h y

s n e 1 n

m d y t w 0 M a a

a h

s n

r b t r r n e s s s a p m i ” a 9 g

g v k

a e n p ] s h o i n s i , d

o r d d n

n l l 5

r c

9 ﬂ i

a a o o n

t i t r ( i f u e o e a c d e o a r i e o

t h l d o w l

o e 1 e o f r d n x t a a a d w l e e c s

m a p i c l

c s c r r e l

m p b , f “ r o , r

s t

, h i h t

t r

h s i o t

t e f

t w t ) o

s t e , s o o p e

l s n p p o e a s i

e h t h

, i

n i y e p e u u s “ o

r r c

h l r s s . l e g s r e h r a p e m e a o o

s t i a i c a g p h s t t W n y e s r 2 e o

e m e h

i e r

s a e .

n t n h i , v n s p c c

. - i s

s g d ) f r n e —

p M

i w i n o a o

s o h e a b d , h .

c t o s i n u ) e d t o

t p t

m s n s , e l l a o r h i s r e f l h e i r

[ p e i a

t n a d n n m u , i o

t n s t n t s w l l e a o s a a

l s e e o

h o o r l i

e y

t w m g

n t

d n p

- n n t a t l o

o r a a m t u u w i e e h s g

m l i d s h

, t h i d r n a t

n p h o l n e w f o o

r r , i s i h w o l l o e e u

c a

s e

p a

l e w y j y s l o p n p

e a

c e c e b a u c

, o n l t t r i i t t

t r

t i x a u r t e o a u t d i l c o - h e r o o -

n i e h , n e h u i a - r o p r y n i - e m e a u m n t - n e g - - s - a n l - - d r r e y . - - and cultural scope. from his early work on the col - lective pains of industrial capitalism, through the Journal of Albion Moonlight (1941/1961) and hundreds of individual poems that witness the suf - fering caused by militarization and war, to his ﬁnal poems where his own body becomes a site for the world’s afﬂiction, patchen’s work is a continuing meditation on david Morris’s claim that pain “emerges only at the intersection of bodies, minds, and cultures” (Morris, 1991, p. 3). When we restore this fuller sense of pain as per - ception or emotion, pain as a subjective experi - ence, we also re-open a host of crucial questions about pain and meaning. pain continually raises the question of meaning and the need to interpret, as the great tragedies keep re-teaching us, and as individual sufferers know on a daily basis as they ponder the question: Why? Why is this happening to me? While we’ve turned pain over to the med - ical profession, there are just too many questions that medical technologies alone cannot answer

(Morris, 1991, pp. 18, 31–34). it is in this devas - tating and often inexpressible world of chronic pain that a “poetics of pain” can be so crucial. Art, and particularly poetry, has evolved some of the most sophisticated and subtle methods for address -

ing questions of meaning, when, as one patchen poem-painting records, “the world is nothing that can be known” (figure 1) (patchen, 2008, p. 98). though we cannot ﬁnally know another’s pain, we may begin a process of empathy by reading its em - bodiment in artistic forms. patchen’s work (like frida Kahlo’s painted diaries) demonstrates how

2 1 f i g u r e

1 poetic and visual forms are particularly suited to the task of expressing inexpressible pain. Both use language to push beyond language—into a region of empathetic experience patchen calls “the shadow,” where, according to the poem-painting in figure 1, “we shall see the color of god’s eyes again.” in this image, “god’s eyes” are the eyes of many creatures: human and animal in the bottom frame, and vegetative in the top frame, where eyes issue from the trees in a form half human and half ﬂower. eyes themselves are the overwhelming focus of the image, repeated in the accented pupils of each creature, in the staring, starry X’s of the bottom frame, as well as in the assonant music of the poem’s repeated o’s (world, nothing, known, shadow, color, god, love, no), where shape and sound coalesce. if “god’s eyes” have a colour here in their blue, black, and grey shades, it is the colour of sympathetic vacancy, a staring speech for the speechlessness void of pain that only love, the

poem suggests, can articulate. “Beyond love — there is no belief” and beyond representation—there is no speech. patchen’s poem-paintings assume the burden of such painful articulation as their ﬁnal task. his work (“a gift, a

love gift / utterly unasked for / By a sky / palely and ﬂamily / igniting its carbon monoxides” [plath, 1981, p. 240]) is dedicated to giving form to the formless, to translating the blank landscape of pain into a vibrant wordscape of colour and life. the poet’s landscapes and ﬁgures inhabit a border - land between tragedy and comedy, where the

22 unimaginable is commonplace, and where the viewer’s bearings on the scene are always uncer - tain. What are we to make, for example, of the slightly disturbing circus colours of “hallelujah” (figure 2)? here, we have the ﬁgure of the clown or fool (often a vehicle for comedy, pain, and in - sight) turning into a kind of fragmented cubist body, a body that becomes landscape, and which whimsically celebrates some kind of absurd horror. the text reads: “hallelujah is my name and what’s goin’ on around here i ﬁnd almost as captivating as the thought of a lipless hyena announcing the next after the last train” (patchen, 2008, p. 156). this poem-painting (figure 2) gives body to a state that is simultaneously rejoicing (hallelujah— praise to the lord) and bewailing (in the voice of the hyena—a nocturnal, carnivorous scavenger with a disturbing, human-like howl or “laugh”). the work occupies both a visual space and a lexi - cal time. it creates a multivalent “here,” a space that is both situated and ephemeral, presence and

dream—the ghostly turning wheels of “the next after the last train.” though i am loath to draw symbolic equivalencies, because i don’t believe these texts are directly allegorical, “hallelujah” can be seen as embodying a landscape of chronic

pain. this is a state that seems to have no begin - ning and no end, that infects body and world si - multaneously, that is both hideous and absurd (on the level of the cosmic joke). for the sufferer, pain often seems devoid of meaning other than itself. it is what it is: a presence that doesn’t change, an eye

2 4 f i g u r e

2 that doesn’t shut, as emily dickinson (1960) re - ﬂected:

pain — has an element of Blank — it cannot recollect When it begun — or if there were A time when it was not — it has no future — but itself — its inﬁnite contain its past — enlightened to perceive new periods — of pain. (p. 323)

chronic pain’s blankness (its refusal of past and future, its infinite message that nothing will change) calls for interpretation, embodiment, voice—and while voice does not necessarily re - solve pain, it does give it form, it puts some bor - ders on pain’s “infinite.” dickinson’s poem embodies pain’s power (in its commanding capital letters, its potentially threatening gaps, and its re - lentless circularity from start to finish, pain to

pain), but at the same time, her tightly controlled quatrains also organize that power—making it in part her own. framing pain in words, images, sounds, or movements may be an extremely power - ful way of reigning its “circumference,” to use an -

other dickinsonian word:

pain — expands the time — Ages coil within the minute circumference of a single Brain — pain contracts — the time —

25 occupied with shot gamuts of eternities Are as they were not — (p. 452)

perhaps because of pain’s resistance to spoken and written language, artists like patchen and Kahlo discovered that a particularly effective way framing pain was by supplementing the verbal with the visual. As figures 3 and 4 illustrate, patchen’s visual images allow his words to speak in new ways. in figure 3, “My god the sorrow of it,” the visual component allows for an excess of verbal meaning” (patchen, 2008). the handwritten text lends an extra sense of thickness, decay, or affliction to the letters. We no - tice the pitting and stress given to the “m” and “g,” as if these impasto letters are both fully present and simultaneously being eaten up, eroded, or put under erasure. the image embodies the words or letters, giving a new kind of signified to the signi - fier, a physical, painterly body to thought. in the

same way, the expressive colour and application (the red outlining, yellow highlighting, black and grey overlays, alterations between deﬁned lines and washes) give form both to the message and to the creatures (the Kafkaesque insect, the ﬁve-

legged dog) who inhabit this world. patchen’s ambiguous “it” opens “the sorrow” up to many sites. the uncertainty about the source or meaning of pain in this piece is highlighted by what is perhaps patchen’s most recurring ﬁgure: the eye. like the blank staring rings in “the World is nothing that can Be Known” (figure 1), the

2 7 f i g u r e

3 oval eyes of “my god” heighten both our voyeuris - tic sense of watching, of overlooking a scene of dreadful privacy, and our sense of being watched— since the eyes seem to be reading us as much as we are reading them. in this painting, the interior eye, outlined in white and yellow (which seems to refer out to a larger eye, outlined in red) is likely the ﬁrst thing to catch the viewer’s eye. But the more we look, the more the eyes proliferate, including those thickly painted, eye-like letters, “g,” “o,” and “d”— the lexical body of the painting’s other eye, god. While figure 3 builds a sense of the thickness of language and experience, figure 4 creates a sense of its thinness—the transience of ﬂesh. here, the use of white space, washes, fading script, and light application all add to the hesitant language of dashes and ellipses:

Which of us is not ﬂesh? last and ﬁrst, in that common cause. Beyond this—i would like to be able to say … to say more.

(patchen, 2008, p. 68)

seen together, patchen’s poem-paintings pres - ent a counter-world to our own, an iconographic place of uncanny creatures and words. david

Morris speaks about how a bio-medical world - view encourages us to see pain as a puzzle—some - thing that can be solved, cured, eradicated if we only ﬁnd and put together the missing pieces. Against this progressivist view, Morris (1991) sug - gests an alternative: that we view pain not as a puzzle but as a mystery:

2 9 f i g u r e

4 Mysteries—if we reinvest the concept with something of its ancient prestige—desig - nate a truth necessarily closed off from full understanding. they remain always partly veiled in silence … Mysteries … refuse to yield up every quantum of their darkness to research or to bright ideas. instead, they introduce us to unusual states of being which, for a time, we enter into and dwell within … As patients, we dwell within mys - teries like pain not because we lack a cru - cial piece of information—although crucial information is always lacking—but be - cause we have no choice. A mystery is an experience life thrusts upon us … Willingly or unwillingly, we enter into a realm that is somehow set apart, where our familiar modes of thought and experience simply do not sufﬁce. (pp. 23–24)

this is exactly what patchen is so good at cre -

ating or re-creating: a provocative, enticing, un - canny world of mysterious pain. the poems are messages or emblems from this world, delivered in a familiar language by vaguely familiar, half- human creatures. We might see them all as cousins

of “hallelujah,” the prophet-fool who suffers and rejoices simultaneously. the creature on the bot - tom right of figure 5 appears to be such a cousin: part clown, part death mask, with a body ﬁlled with scars and eyes. the body reveals its wounds through a layered-painting effect that seems to breach the exterior and expose the interior. the

3 1 f i g u r e

5 poem-paintings invite us not to solve them, but to “dwell within” them, to inhabit their frames and bodies. in this sense, we become one of patchen’s creatures in our experience of their world, a trans - formation that “i have a funny feeling …” (figure 5) embodies. like us, patchen’s creatures come in a wide va - riety of shapes and sizes. their most striking com - mon feature, however, as noted previously, is their prominent, penetrating eyes. this gaze is undoubt - edly part of their uncanniness: they seem to be watching us watch them. in fact, “i have a funny feeling that some very peculiar-looking creatures out there are watching us” (figure 5) is explicitly about the odd congruence of gazes between ﬁgure and viewer (patchen, 2008, p. 122). readers can situate themselves in either position: on one hand, they may be outside, observing this odd world of scariﬁed creatures and entombed birds. in this case, the voice comes from within the painting and the viewers themselves become the “peculiar-look -

ing creatures.” on the other hand, viewers may po - sition themselves inside, identiﬁed with patchen’s “peculiar-looking” creatures as the object of the gaze. patchen’s text divides us from ourselves, so that we cannot be quite sure if we are watching or

being watched. this effect is heightened by the proliferation of eyes: not only in the incisive gazes of creatures, but all over the frame. in this image, the trees have eyes, the stones are eyes, and even the ﬁgures’ bodies seem to include extra eyes. the whole scene, in fact, may be lit by two eye-like suns in the upper right corner. this multiplication

32 of eyes is a common feature of patchen’s poem- paintings. in other works, eyes appear on hands and feet. these marks are reminiscent of stig - mata—the eye-like wounds of christ and other saints, which both see and express pain. patchen’s world stresses vision as well as the visionary. the visionary is that which connects two realms—the earthly (to which his figures are often firmly at - tached) and the divine, or otherworldly (to which they so often point). the “visionary” in patchen is a large topic, beyond the scope of this present work, but it is worthwhile to recall that the vision - ary is often linked to and achieved by pain—as in the passion re-enacted by self- flagellating me - dieval christian mystics. the eyes of vision, interrogation, and sympa - thy are all over patchen’s work. they are one of the many ways he draws us in and creates a com - munity of shared feeling—and ultimately, a shared sense of the comedy and tragedy of human life. As figure 6 indicates, the message of so much of

patchen’s (2008) work—from the overtly political early poems to the subtler, bittersweet irony of the poem-paintings—is about the collective necessity of recovery, healing, or acceptance for all. his art moves between the poles of peace and pain, reﬂect -

ing on the ways we’ve chosen to structure this “w orld,” the image and word stretched out across the middle of figure 6, and the middle of the body of his work (p. 143). in over two hundred poem-paintings, patchen rarely represents a solitary ﬁgure. While chronic pain can be the most isolating of afﬂictions

3 4 f i g u r e

3 5 “ f o t e p r l m a w p ( h f ( e p i t h i f o t g c i h t j o o n n n a i P M h o a e W v n e s h u o n a a i d u c o h o c c m i a p g s g d n

e c a e y m c

t n i o e d m r a e e r i

s m t o r u n

r c r h i e t t s s F w l

d b e c i i d

v o e

r e a h d n ” i r s

, n s o b a s a u d i h s i o e

e c i b i s n c r

t g

e e p n r a n t m t t d

s e ’ a i i d p e a

[

a i h , o y o c s

o n e u r n s e a

i r s a

1 n , u n l l s

a i i y o s “ n k e

i a d , e r

’ t n C u e t , r a 9 s h a

t c a o t

m e o i d

g , c e e s d c t a t h a t s

m 2 m n

s a l 9

a , f h

h s p m a i e

o s e

w a 8 c

t e o g e 0 a

c l h i l b

n 1 m i l , , i a t e i o

l a o

l d a

n l

o o l t o s e h t e k

u c , w n y p t m f s t y e r m W y o i e

h 8

c t l r

n n o i e e e e a e n p t

m i e p

m d n

, e i e t

c r b o a c l

e y a s r l m t

g r s . t e a i y

s p , d

, n

p o

m h m “ a n n n h -

l f t t

a w J i

3 o l

f y a r o p v o .

s v u d t n o d a s i t o y t

a o h o 7 t — f o s s i

i u e h 1 i o o a e l r

n o t u f i

o g s

t e e

r , i t n ] g m n a

i g

0 h i e r

m t s

. s r a

v a r

s d e n ) r s n o a a o W e g n l o

h a

p 6

e n

i u l x e d p q a

i u r

g t t l

o g n

) i r u n a t n c r a

i r o a i i b i p b n m , e u . i a o

i e

s f s

n s s

t t e n o

c v l p t t n b w r s e l e a

p c P t l d i c

s s

l e h g w u a a

l s e l a n r t

l e i u n i ; h “ y a l y h t r b e a b a o e s g i o n

l r e t

h e u . q i r e n

o e u

a s , a n a a

e i n n u c

e o m t d

i A . ﬁ n e u o r t

t r s h u s r a m b b s

c t n

p t r

h o n i

, e g i s , t u i i

ﬁ s c a a e r o

a ” l l B

t a s s v c , a e t s u e e — i e e u o a h t v l

’ e

m s w n

c t s e . n o a h t w

e t

a , l b e r d e

a s u h

p i c

e t

A l e m a o n t b e s a l i n n l x i

s ? m e l l

h h s a n i i l t r a l n n

n e f i m d e t

” n c k a i o o . n i

i s t a r - e i f i i

n . s t p

n n e

d l t

i a n

e t l n e h r t u i ( t s p t

l g m p n c a h . s

h v

o n s e s 2 a ; n l h h ’ f a w s a f , o e

e l t i a s s n h o n

n a i 0 o

h e n a

y r i

i h b

t , a t r m i o

t h o i l s g o g t

r o c e

a n 0 c p r r

, i e s i c e a a i

e t

e f a d e u t f a t m

f o g o a

c a c

w 8 o e e

a p t

i a

n u b a l r s w o a s i l o n h l

l o s

, b

r n d

a h e

t o o e a l t

u d

n s i

n m e q m o f ﬁ i y

o p K s a l w a

l e e y u r s

v o d

r d a i ’ 7 , t u t

c g

. y s t s t n

s t

i f m o

e f e a c

w r h h s e t o e o , n y u

u f — e c j

2 c

h x n t e s h u b e r u t e d a n i s l

r g u f u r h e a 7 o e e n s o o p r r l e f t f

s t

- e a

n o e t

d a - a f i e 1 a

i u t f e t i s o o l u l e n r

r a r ’ t t h o n ) r i

d s s a

r s - - n o t k g i l i i a - d - n ” i n - s e , d s t -

3 6 f i g u r e

3 7 f i g u r e

8 “fight pain with pain” (lorde, 1995). 6 All these artists create forms which both validate and give meaning to what often seem like the meaningless “rents” (cystic fibrosis, cancer, natural disaster, de - pression, Aids, poverty, chronic pain) we have to pay to live in us. this article represents a very preliminary inves - tigation into the poetics of pain. there is still much to be done, but i want to leave this piece with the final thought that pain need not always be seen as catastrophe. indeed, a survey of our past—of the kind Morris undertakes in The Culture of Pain — shows us that pain has often and perhaps necessar - ily attended growth, achievement, and vision. When we consider the pain that so frequently ac - companies initiation rites all over the world (cir - cumcision, tattooing, fasting, and other physical challenges), or the visionary pain of religious mys - tics of many traditions; when we contemplate the poetry of painful transformation in emily dickinson or sylvia plath, or the stories of the re -

demptive pain of oedipus or jesus—what we see is the way pain opens us up to a truth that seems to both connect and transcend physical bodies.

Notes

1. Morris provides some shocking statistics: 90 million Americans suffer - ing from chronic pain, 60 million either partially or totally disabled, at a cost of 750 million workdays, and somewhere between 60 and 90 billion dollars annually (19). 2. Patchen is perhaps best known as a proto-Beat poet, a “rebel poet in America” as Larry Smith titles his biography, or as Patchen’s close friend and supporter Henry Miller put it “a living symbol of protest … a ﬁzzing human bomb ever threatening to explode in our midst” (Morgan, p. 33). What has not been frequently noted is the fact that

3 9 p n M M l d 6 4 5 d R 3 . . . . a o i i e e o e t c c r l c l k k s d r S T A P f n M P o n l ( B ﬁ t d t i o H s 1 s M P o l h s O s [ S t i z h r i s i h n o r e 1 u e u u e i , e e a i n 3 u a a o v n h f l a e o

o n i e h e s e g l 9 m e e r n

i c a i c , K e t d n s e

s t e a r c e k i e l f c

t t

t l a n c

i b J s c

w w s 4 h l a ,

l A d , - u

l p k

e . o d t t e

o r u o h

i y t o L

l , m )

u b h 3

p S r d a e c r r

h e w r d

: o , F

i ‘ . u f l n e

f i n B e y K b

s o e e u a y b ] d

s o s i l

c y v

a s e n

B r u n B l c a n a

i a i d a h o t i r c

, t i g d o a

e y a t c a p

a f o n e

g w r a h n t r k n a ’ i s 1

r v

r o i o r o e o n , r m e r i

n s o n r y w i r n g s r e e

i :

n e

g y w d d l e e e 9 i c t n e e

P c e s b d r n ,

a m k

d k a v

. t

n b

l .

e T s s t s a S 5 t e v

i n l o c i o b e

t o W L a m e a i , g i

( n u . o o s i t h c e s ( i i n

h 9 n t

e m i i m t

s m t i o s o u 1 r r n l . 1 t o a n

t a n f t l n y i ( e c a n y

a k e . d s g p e o h y o g r t f h i 1 9 g a i

d r n d 9 h

i g

, s e n e P :

. c e , T ( l d t D r y e e

p n L e

. 9 8

a e

e , e t a e 9 h p e r h r a a

M t d r ( a u &

e e h d f n

r ( s i i s n : s 9 n o r 9 h o s S 1 P , c p o e 5 b u t f n

, 1 r l e .

s c ’ n c e

y B a t g u 1 r

i ) K t w i h s o 9

a e ) A s g

1 s s

b s d , 9 . g h o l . h o

W p t

. T i

’

t c e f p )

a s

l i 6 a

9 a e

e l P v i

i h ( r a u t 6 e : R n o i . a v t s e .

t r e a e t s w e 1

i n

d n r t 0 9 h T t e u , t r n

h s s a c e r 8 i T a l

i d

t r e e e d m n n 9 5 p r r g

p ) c a c t L

t i h l l h ) m c i

n i o p h i a s . h s h l l

e e

. a r l s a r 9 f . t

n e c i D a , o E o

s B i e

n i

u a e o

C t r t

t e i g t

P s t

n T a 7 a t i r o , h e o p n n s

l e p

u ﬁ g d

o y

r t e e h r a C e h e p u g s u

o 2 f C )

i g . s y i f a h h y g h a p v u r

g o a t , o r . t o i n

r s 0 o t m e s

i t i i

f e e t

i C t o e c u t e v h m B k i n [ a s c S o c s r r t a n h 0 n o e f n

n o r e f e

i p l i e a h i

g p t C

l n s A u m r d t 4

e 0 i r t t v e c e d e W c c t i n o r

i f t i . u m o

i u

l r d s

l 3 L ) l x k a m t

o o e e h t

o m t s e a f i

t y m G a , a m b o w o

r ) l

t a

r i t a r d

u e

a i t

l h B l

l h

o 2 o e y .

d l s s

e l e m b d n i o n

t n u d

] r o t a n J e

, r c z n 3 o r

o a r

h . a o e i o o

m : o c c d t . e n e c y n P

i o . e p p s n .

h e g S c l r e t f [ c s a u t R f

g o d o

l r i n d b k

1 ( R s a e

a t i o n M e o c o F

r w

a P 1 r e c e e

i p s n n d 9 n a a

d r

n Y y o g n n v e r b k a l m o i v a 9 l d n

o a c 4

t e a e n s y e

c a g a c i h o e r P i : f i e t i t s 8 d r d 2 m t r n n n

s o t c o

s o l l s e l i u r k i

T o

s i m p s e

] 3 t s . o

e c a e a i r n . v

s u P n

o . o

d e h s

r h a ,

t r ) l a t f g e c B e

a n w g

ﬁ m

i o m a . s e

r i n n n t a e d x r a r c

n c t t

h s s s e h y l b s e a T s h o e o h d y

e a

h p i u n a t s , s r v o a L e t p r w z t n o e

t o

h g . i e c , . k e o a

p 1 d n i C p

r e i m

i v s r c M o e

n S n s

e d a s e i o o f o

f d a 9 p b i

l s b e u i m i r e

u l r m n a a o r e

r d A s o C 1

o e k s e s e l r p o

t t p o f

s t a t , a a

i g e

s y e l a w

S 0 n e m

h a a e

o d h c e f o s n B m a f e , n t n r e h n

t i h - s

x e e u r

f e a w d t r e w

e n o c c r t 1 ( d o o t

y t m e

i a ’ l r y r p l . t s n . i r t

t f n s

9 b c

h e

l h

m A s n a h i h

i ) o m

p “ r

a K j D e

t g c h b h c t

. o c n 4 e ﬁ o a e

h o B F r r

n s : a p A

o i u a o a i a i

d t o

d 5 k r t e e o s h r e l r g s

u l e d h l t n s , n

a g t (

m u a

m b e . c , p

e n u s n e l b T t o

e H

d s c n

r n o c t h

y d m u n r g r

e o o o

i p s . e h

e a a g o i w v i

d i u

T A f a m o n f d s k u F D r s h v y g c

f e y f i e r

g s u o i t g n e

n c t i : t e

o s a r o p c . t r c i

e h : s

i P b r y

f t t h

r w i c n e A r c n e a o v

t i i

e s e a s e

r k e i d h n m , e s , n a h n o r i i n i e u i t ’ - a t g i t n - - f l s h - . n y t a . ” . t - patchen, Kenneth. (2008). The Walking-Away World . new york, ny: new directions. rexroth, Kenneth. (1977). Kenneth patchen: naturalist of the public nightmare. in richard Morgan (ed.), Kenneth Patchen: A Collection of Essays (pp. 20-25). new york, ny: AMs press. scarry, elaine. (1985). The Body in Pain : The Making and Unmaking of the World . new york, ny: oxford university press. smith, larry. (2000). Kenneth Patchen: Rebel Poet in America . huron, oh: Bottom dog press. Woolf, virginia. On Being Ill . (2002). notes by julia stephen and in - troduction by hermione lee. Ashﬁeld, MA: paris press.

Mark Silverberg is an Associate professor of American liter - ature at cape Breton university. he is the author of The New York School Poets and the Neo-Avant-Garde: Between Radical Art and Radical Chic (Ashgate, 2010) and editor of New York School Collaborations: The Color of Vowels (palgrave/Macmillan, 2013). his poetry collection, Believing the Line, was published by Breton Books in 2013 and was a ﬁnalist for the Montaigne Medal and a prize winner for the eric hoffer Award grand prize. email: [email protected]