As far as that goes I cannot seem to get unstrung either. I just lay in the sack or stare out the window and I say to myself, come come, old man, this is not the way to create Art. And then another voice says, well, hell, EVERYBODY’S busy creating ART, and maybe that what’s the matter. They’re all trying to MAKE IT, trying to hustle up their little snail walls. God damn the prince and Tolstoy and Norman Mailer. [* * *]

The Webbs eventually published an issue of The Outsider featuring a “Homage to Kenneth Patchen” section, but not a separate book by him.

[To Jon and Louise Webb]

August 23, 1963

[* * *] Good on the Patchen; he’s not believed in his fame or he knows that a man working out of fame is the same as a man working out of failure—each time the one or the other begins again, they begin even. You might call this innocence or you might call it non-innocence or you might call it anything, but whatever it is, it is good that he has it.

Does accepting the Patchen book mean that Buk book #2 is off? This will be o.k. if you cannot bear the load, and remember I told you I did not hold you to a second book—which it looks like we don’t have the poems for anyhow.

It Catches is plenty for me, I can only bear about so much good.

[To Jon and Louise Webb]

September 18, 1963

[* * *] Got rid of a mass of your rejects to Targets for $25 for his next issue as a Signature. Also Holland took a couple, so the luck holds. With It Catches coming up, I might need another 10 years off to get my senses back. There is always the danger of writing too much or pushing beyond yourself. Something kills writers and kills them pretty fast, and then we all die anyhow like the fly and the flower, the wail…shit, so…some dullard outside honking his horn; somebody else hammers. Still the insomnia thing but most of the bleeding has stopped. nasty letter from a churchboy who was handed one of my poems…. I’m interested in the Patchen section, of course. Do try to get some DRAWINGS from him along with photos. Do you know that I haven’t read any of his books, never seen one? Just a poem here and there, mostly a reprint and mostly all good in this awesome softly real good way; but then, I have not been much of a reader for some time. I get the idea, though, that he has remained alive as an Artist. On the back-thing, I really don’t know. I am somewhat confused on the back-thing. I think everybody with a bad back should be taken care of, including Patchen. I mean, have the medical thing. But the poems are Patchen, and the drawings. And he’s as OUTSIDE as any, sure. [* * *]