“During one particularly magnanimous period recently, I lugged my tattered, half-burnt stereo to a rare books room every day for a couple weeks so a friend could listen to Kenneth Patchen read his poetry on hissy Folkways LPs. Though a total pain in the ass, the effort seemed in keeping with the rambling spirit of the wordsmith: Patchen published more than 36 books between 1936 and 1972, and his st”
