By: Scott LaChapelle

          “It doesn’t seem appropriate to me to write in a way that bullies the reader” (Koch, Kenneth. Personal Interview. 5/8/1993. http://www.english.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/koch.html) These were Kenneth Koch’s words during an interview, when discussing his poetry. Koch was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1925. Before World War two Koch trained to become a meteorologist, but after the war he made different plans. His Uncle Leo had been a novelist, and when he was young had also written poetry, which he showed to Koch and helped to inspire him. Koch wrote his first poem when he was five, but he started writing more serious poetry around the age of seventeen. After the war, Koch went to Harvard, as an English major, and then went to Columbia University for his PhD. After his schooling, Koch went to New York, where he met other poets, and helped create the New York School of Poets. “The New York School” was a group of poets that met at Harvard, of which Koch was a founder. Although He received a fair amount of criticism, it never changed how Koch wrote, and because of his easy-going, sometimes funny poetry, he was sometimes referred to as ”Kenneth Koch, The Comic Poet.” Some of his favorite types of poetry, such as surrealism and modern poetry influenced a lot of his poems. Kenneth Koch died in July 2002, but will always be considered a great poet, because of the many wonderful poems he wrote.

Most of Koch’s poems are rather random, or as described by a teacher of his “Wild and Crazy”(Koch, Kenneth. Personal Interview. 5/8/1993. http://www.english.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/koch.html). He was a huge inspiration to many poets, mainly because he was a founder of “The New York School”. One of his most random poems is called, “To Various Persons Talked To All At Once”. In this poem the author, Koch, is in random conversations with a bunch of people at one time. While many of his poems are rather spontaneous, some of his poems are rather logical like “One Train May Hide Another”. In This poem Koch lists many examples to prove his point that some things aren’t necessarily what they look like the first time you see them. Koch also writes inspiration poems. One such poem is Called “Variations Of A Poem By William Carlos Williams”. In Carlos’ poem he taunts the reader about eating the reader’s breakfast for the next day. Koch’s variations talk about doing antagonizing things such as destroying your house, giving away your life savings, spraying hollyhocks with lye, and breaking your legs. They seem so similar to William Carlos’ poem, that you would think that the same person wrote them. All of Koch’s works are wonderful poems, and people will probably still read them for many years.

                        His Works:

·        Seasons on Earth (1987),

·        On the Edge (1986),

·        Days and Nights (1982),

·        The Burning Mystery of Anna in 1951 (1979),

·         The Duplications (1977),

·        The Art of Love (1975),

·        The Pleasures of Peace (1969),

·        When the Sun Tries to Go On (1969),

·         Thank You (1962),

·        Ko (1960).