Patchen pioneered the "drawing-and-poem form" as well as the painting-and-poem form and produced over a thousand "painted books", special copies of his own works with original paintings on the covers. His many hundreds of drawings and paintings have been described as being reminiscent of those of Blake and Klee. During the course of a long and varied career, he also tried his hand at writing experimental novels, such as "The Journal of Albion Moonlight" and "The Memoirs of a Shy Pornographer", and the radio play "The City Wears a Slouch Hat". Patchen's "Collected Poems" was first published in 1969, just a few years before his death.