Experimental poet and author who is remembered for Sleepers Awake, The Walking-Away World, and other works. His 1968 work, The Collected Poems of Kenneth Patchen, was lauded by a New York Times reviewer.
He attended a Wisconsin college on a football scholarship, but an injury forced him to leave the team and the school. He published his first poetry collection, Before the Brave, in 1936.
He was an innovator in the literary genre known as jazz poetry.
He grew up in Ohio with four sisters and one brother. He wed Miriam Oikemus in 1934.
His work was admired and championed by Novelist Henry Miller.
