Because It Is by Kenneth Patchen (1960)

A collection of poems by the multimedia writer and dedicated pacifist, Kenneth Patchen (1911-1972).

Poetry Review: Because It Is is not the best place to start with Kenneth Patchen. It's not his best work, it's not really representative of his style, it's an odd collection even for him. The content is more like prose poems broken into lines, and more like an intoxicated Edward Lear spouting random gibberish in an amusing but nonsensical way. Others may think of James Joyce or Lewis Carroll. Puns, portmanteau words, silly juxtapositions. Absurdist. Dada. A lobster on a leash. And each poem is accompanied by one of Patchen's drawings, illustrating less or more some aspect of the piece, none like the Thurberesque dog portrayed on the cover. Each poem begins with "Because ..." and concludes with a more profound statement than anything that came before. For example, a poem might begin "Because she felt bashful with palm trees," or "Because a door in the hill opened," or "Because going nowhere takes a long time." A poem might include a line such as "pasting vile tasting labels on cans," or "Oh, flaming pig in a frockcoat," or "a supply of used burro stoppers." And a poem might conclude "There are days nobody gets break," or "Keeping her damn snapping turtles in my back-pocket," or "Our lives are watching us  -- but not from earth." No one can tell which beginning ended with which conclusion. The poems in Because It Is are fun and mildly if briefly entertaining, mostly for their sheer oddness. And occasionally there's a line that, all by itself, makes the reader stop and think, such as: "the several/Systems for preventing rain from falling upward," or "When we love,/God thinks in us," or "trying to dry water on a cold fire." Overall I most enjoyed the drawings. Although I like to believe that I'm a free thinker and know that poems can be most anything, in my heart of hearts I would call most of the poems here doggerel and amusements and not so much poetry. This sort of thing was not characteristic of Patchen's work, which could be infinitely touching and meaningful. I think he agrees with me because no poems from Because It Is were included in his Selected Poems (1957) or Collected Poems (1968); the latter was an awesome labor of love by all concerned. Although not his best or most representative work, it does abound in silliness and Because It Is is still another volume that sits on a shelf in the limitless archive of wrongly forgotten American poets.  [3½★]