In a sense, Before the Brave and First Will and Testament constituted the most forthright, the most inspired "proletarian" poetry of our time. But [Patchen's] spirit was too independent, too innately creative and prophetic, to remain long within the Marxist orbit. It is probable that the outbreak of the Second World War hastened his precipitate retreat to the fastness of the self.

Before the Brave sounded a call to revolutionary battle. (p. 181)

The conflict is not only inevitable but imminent. To prepare ourselves for this catastrophic but redemptive event, we must rid ourselves of the dangerous nonsense of religion, the rank folly of patriotism. (pp. 181-82)

[The] early class conscious poetry of Patchen gains tremendous power by its concentration of aim. But with the publication of First Will and Testament in 1939, a significant change came over Patchen's work. This volume is largely an effort at self-understanding. Like Whitman's...