Selected Poems

This selection is drawn from ten earlier volumes by the poet who has been called "the most compelling force in American poetry since Whitman."

The late Kenneth Patchen was unique among contemporary poets for his direct and passionate concern with the most essential elements in the tragic, comic, blundering and at rare moments glorious world around us. He wrote about the things we can feel; with our whole being—the senselessness of war, the need for love among men on earth, the presence of Go...