Kenneth Koch

"Theater such as Kenneth Koch cannot be simply paraphrased, and presents to the audience the classic Mennipean challenge: to ponder, to mull it over, to think."--Mac Wellman The Banquet brings together 144 plays, ten screenplays, and five operas spanning more than five decades of experimental work from a writer John Ashbery has called "simply the best we have." Witty, provocative, and playful, Kenneth Koch's work draws on poetry, musicals, improvisational comedy, satire, and other forms for their inspiration and touches on subjects ranging from the silly to the sublime. Kenneth Koch (1925--2002), known for his association with the New York School of poetry, wrote many collections of poetry, fiction, plays, and nonfiction. His books include Seasons on Earth, On the Edge, Thank You and Other Poems, The Art of Love, One Thousand Avant-Garde Plays, Hotel Lambosa, and The Collected Fiction, and several books on teaching children how to write poetry. Koch was awarded numerous honors, including the Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry, awarded by the Library of Congress in 1996, as well as awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Fulbright, Guggenheim, and Ingram-Merrill foundations. In 1996 he was inducted as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Kenneth Koch lived in New York City, where he was professor of English at Columbia University.

"Theater such as Kenneth Koch cannot be simply paraphrased, and presents to the audience the classic Mennipean challenge: to ponder, to mull it over, to think."--Mac Wellman The Banquet brings together 144 plays, ten screenplays, and five operas spanning more than five decades of experimental work from a writer John Ashbery has called "simply the best we have." Witty, provocative, and playful, Kenneth Koch's work draws on poetry, musicals, improvisational comedy, satire, and other forms for their inspiration and touches on subjects ranging from the silly to the sublime. Kenneth Koch (1925--2002), known for his association with the New York School of poetry, wrote many collections of poetry, fiction, plays, and nonfiction. His books include Seasons on Earth, On the Edge, Thank You and Other Poems, The Art of Love, One Thousand Avant-Garde Plays, Hotel Lambosa, and The Collected Fiction, and several books on teaching children how to write poetry. Koch was awarded numerous honors, including the Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry, awarded by the Library of Congress in 1996, as well as awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Fulbright, Guggenheim, and Ingram-Merrill foundations. In 1996 he was inducted as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Kenneth Koch lived in New York City, where he was professor of English at Columbia University.

Ros, var blev du så röd? Frågan, som med litet god vilja kan sägas vara en estetisk fråga, är ställd av den amerikanske poeten Kenneth Koch, som tillsammans med John Ashbery, James Schuyler och den tidigt döde Frank O’Hara brukar föras samman under begreppet New York-skolan. Författarna var sinsemellan ganska olika, men förenades av ett intresse för europeisk modernism och bildkonst och ett avspänt intellektuellt förhållande till språket. Kenneth Koch (1925–2002) är författare till en svit dikter om olika slags estetik, ”On Aesthetics”, som ingår i samlingen One Train från 1994. Ur sviten presenteras nu på svenska tjugofyra mer eller mindre koncisa exempel, pedagogiskt arrangerade i någotsånär kronologisk ordning. Jonas Ellerström har översatt och boken har titeln Om estetik. Den utgör nr 3 i Trombones nya serie Svavel. Inledningsfrågan? Den utgör titeln på en av Kochs böcker om hur man lär barn skriva poesi (en annan heter Önskningar, lögner och drömmar), och lekfullhet och nyfikenhet, två ”barnsliga” egenskaper, är just ett par av Kenneth Kochs främsta tillgångar som diktare. Välkomna till estetiklektionen! Svavel är en handgjord, småskalig och alltid sextonsidig skriftserie innehållande koncentrerad och högklassig litteratur. Böckerna i serien är häftade och i A6-format. Utgivna titlar i Svavel: 1. PETER LUCAS ERIXON Fotismer (2012) 2. MORTEN SONDERGAARD Akut sol (2013) 3. KENNETH KOCH Om estetik (2013) 4. JONAS ELLERSTRÖM Antecknat i Albion (2013) 5. DAN GUSTAVSSON Naturlyrik (2013) 6. CHRISTER BOBERG Haiku (2013) 7. LOUISE JUHL DALSGAARD Att spela squash i ett rum utan väggar (2015) 8. JONAS RASMUSSEN Det hemska vi har gjort (2015) 9. MARIA KÜCHEN Varg (2015) 10. LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI Genom eldslågorna (2015) 11. PETRA MÖLSTAD Omloppstid (2015) 12. SIDDHARTHA SEBASTIAN LARSSON Jag har 33 aforismer och du är en av dem (2016) 13. VÄRLDENS KORTASTE ANTOLOGI (2016) 14. JONAS ELLERSTRÖM Antipoderna (2016) 15. RAINER MARIA RILKE Urljud (2016) 16. JONAS RASMUSSEN Därur orden (2016) 17. LEIF HOLMSTRAND Avstå från tragedierna (2017) 18. VÄRLDENS KORTASTE ESSÄSAMLING (2017) 19. EVA RIBICH Kvar (2018) 20. CIA RINNE Vad angår meningar är jag förtvivlad (2020) 21. RUNE CHRISTIANSEN Transamorem Transmortem (2021) 22. FREDRIK AHLFORS Väderobservationer (2021) 23. CHARLOTTA LJUNG A B C D E (2021) 24. LUISA FAMOS På väg (2022) 25. LINA HAGELBÄCK Låt oss aldrig tala ut (2022) 26. WILLIAMS CARLOS WILLIAMS Som denna blomma framhärdar jag (2023) 27. KENNET KLEMETS eller som när jag blundar (2023)

Draws on the full range of the New York School-educated writer's body of poetry and offers insight into his transition from high-energy comic writings into the more lyrical pieces of his later years, in a volume that includes such works as "Fresh Air," "The Pleasures of Peace," and "The Art of Poetry."

“It’s lucky for us all that you’re holding Koch’s collected fiction in your hands right now. Koch’s seasons on our earth were blessed ones and these traces, some of them among his last, are gifts.”—Jonathan Lethem Hilarious and profoundly moving, this volume restores to print all the fiction of the writer John Ashbery called “simply the best we have.” Koch, who once characterized New York School writing as about “the fullness and richness of possibility and excitement and happiness,” imbues his prose with humor, wit, and a beautifully tender exuberance. The Collected Fiction of Kenneth Koch is a must-read for anyone interested in discovering what American literature might still hope to be. Published simultaneously with The Collected Poems of Kenneth Koch (Knopf), Collected Fiction includes Koch’s innocent and rambunctious novel The Red Robins, as well as Hotel Lambosa, his book of semi-autobiographical short pieces inspired equally by Hemingway’s Nick Adams stories and Yasunari Kawabata’s Palm-of-the-Hand Stories. Fans of Koch’s unparalleled gift for comic invention will turn immediately to “The New Orleans Stories,” a cycle about the family of a small-time criminal, published here for the first time along with “The Soviet Room,” a gentle story of requited love at the end of the Cold War. Koch’s previously uncollected work includes a warm-hearted parody of a children’s adventure narrative and a story detailing the mysteries uncovered by an obsessive postcard detective. Together, the work of Kenneth Koch opens up a wonderful world—one where the pursuit of happiness is taken very seriously indeed. Kenneth Koch was born in Cincinnati and served in the South Pacific during World War II. A poet, playwright, novelist, and Columbia University professor, Koch also published several books about teaching and reading poetry, including the groundbreaking Wishes, Lies, and Dreams; Rose, Where Did You Get That Red?; and Making Your Own Days: The Pleasures of Reading and Writing Poetry. He was the recipient of the Bollingen Prize and the Bobbitt Library of Congress Prize, a finalist for the National Book Award, and winner of the Phi Beta Kappa Poetry Award.

Kenneth Koch, who has already considerably "stretched our ideas of what it is possible to do in poetry" (David Lehman), here takes on the classic poetic device of apostrophe, or direct address. His use of it gives him yet another chance to say things never said before in prose or in verse and, as well, to bring new life to a form in which Donne talked to Death, Shelley to the West Wind, Whitman to the Earth, Pound to his Songs, O'Hara to the Sun at Fire Island. Koch, in this new book, talks to things important in his life -- to Breath, to World War Two, to Orgasms, to the French Language, to Jewishness, to Psychoanalysis, to Sleep, to his Heart, to Friendship, to High Spirits, to his Twenties, to the Unknown. He makes of all these "new addresses" an exhilarating autobiography of a most surprising and unforeseeable kind.

Selections from the work of sixty-five poets, from Homer and Ovid to Frank O'Hara and John Ashberry, accompany a discussion of poetry, including meter, line division, rhyme, and poetic forms

This classic guide by the trail-blazer of teaching poetry offers ideas and techniques that are useful at all age levels, as well as wonderful poems by his students. "... Koch] has taken his thoughtful, giving, resourceful, and patient spirit to quite elderly and often infirm men and women, in obvious hopes of finding among them a similar responsiveness of mind and heart. If anything, the result is a more poignant and dramatic victory." -New York Times Book Review

A charter member of the legendary New York School of poets that includes John Ashbery, Frank O'Hara, and James Schuyler, Kenneth Koch has become one of America's best known and best loved poets. His apt parodies and zany poetic conceits have earned him the distinction of being the funniest poet in America, and his extravagant imagination and knack for high hilarity have pleased generations of readers. Here, in The Art of Poetry, Koch offers amusing and thought-provoking essays on the nature of the poetic moment, from its heartfelt emergence in an elementary school classroom to its raucous display in a set of satirical cartoons drawn by the author. Also included are interviews with Allen Ginsberg and Jordan Davis in which Koch discusses a range of diverse topics, including literary criticism, French poetry, and Santa Claus. The Art of Poetry provides Koch's audience with not only the musings and mischievous thoughts of the poetic mind, but also the reflections of the most respected poetry teacher in America. Kenneth Koch's other books include On the Great Atlantic Rainway: Selected Poems 1950-1988; Seasons on Earth, Days and Nights, The Art of Love, One Thousand Avant-Garde Plays, and One Train, for which he won the Bollingen Prize in American Poetry. He is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University.

The Selected Poems of Kenneth Koch.

"Short-shorts that are beautifully observed, refreshingly good humored, and packed with pleasing details of a colorful life in the bohemian 60's . . . Original, shapely, and richly detailed scenes from the not-too-distant past."--Kirkus Reviews¶"Passages of sumptuous language chanted for the ear."--Washington Sunday Times