Reviews for The Collected Poems of Kenneth Koch

The average rating for The Collected Poems of Kenneth Koch based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-04-12 00:00:00 Tania Watson The Collected Poems, although not complete, presents Koch's shorter poems from the following collections: Sun Out: Selected Poems 1952-1954 , Thank You and Other poems , The Pleasures Of Peace And Other Poems , The Art of Love: Poems , The Burning Mystery of Anna in 1951 , Days And Nights , One Train: Poems , Straits: Poems , New Addresses , and A Possible World . Koch's longer poems can be found here: On the Edge: Collected Long Poems . From Sun Out: Selected Poems 1952-1954 ... Bananas, piers, limericks I am postures Over there, I, are The lakes of delectation Sea, sea you! Mars and win- Some buffalo They thinly raft the plain, Common do It ice-floes, hit-and-run drivers, The mass of the wind. Is that snow H-ing at the door? And we Come in the buckle, a Vanquished distinguished Secret festival, relieving flights Of the black brave ocean. - Sun Out, pg. 5 From Thank You and Other poems ... I love you as a sheriff searches for a walnut That will solve a murder case unsolved for years Because the murderer left it in the snow beside a window Through which he saw her head, connecting with Her shoulders by a neck, and laid a red Roof in her heart. For this we live a thousand years; For this we love, and we live because we love, we are not Inside a bottle, thank goodness! I love you as a Kid searches for a goat; I am crazier than shirttails In the wind, when you're near, a wind that blows from The big blue sea, so shiny so deep and so unlike us; I think I am bicycling across an Africa of green and white fields Always, to be near you, even in my heart When I'm awake, which swims, and also I believe that you Are trustworthy as the sidewalk which leads me to The place where I again think of you, a new Harmony of thoughts! I love you as the sunlight leads the prow Of a ship which sails From Hartford to Miami, and I love you Best at dawn, when even before I am awake the sun Receives me in the questions which you always pose. - To You, pg. 80 From The Pleasures Of Peace And Other Poems ... The thing To do Is organize The sea So boats will Automatically float To their destinations. Ah, the Greeks Thought of that! Well, what if They Did? We have no Gods Of the wind! And therefore Must use Silence! - Poem, pg. From The Art of Love: Poems ... I have a bird in my head and a pig in my stomach And a flower in my genitals and a tiger in my genitals And a lion in my genitals and I am after you but I have a song in my heart And my song is a dove I have man in my hands I have a woman in my shoes I have a landmark decision in my reason I have a death rattle in my nose I have summer in my brain water I have dreams in my toes This is the matter with me and the hammer of my mother and father Who created me with everything But I lack clam I lack rose Though I do not lack extreme delicacy of rose petal Who is it that I wish to astonish? In the birdcall I found a reminder of you But it was thin and brittle and gone in an instant Has nature set out to be a great entertainer? Obviously not a great reproducer? A great Nothing? Well I will leave that up to you I have a knocking woodpecker in my heart and I think I have three souls One for love one for poetry and one for acting out my insane self Not insane but boring but perpendicular but untrue but true The three rarely sing together take my hand it's active The active ingredient in it is a touch I am Lord Byron I am Percy Shelley I am Ariosto I eat the bacon I went down the slide I have a thunderstorm in my inside I will never hate you But how can this maelstrom be appealing? do you like menageries? my god Most people want a man! So here I am I have a pheasant in my reminders I have a goshawk in my clouds Whatever is it which has led all these animals to you? A resurrection? or maybe an insurrection? an inspiration? I have a baby in my landscape and I have a wild rat in my secrets from you. - Alive for an Instant, pg. 247 From The Burning Mystery of Anna in 1951 ... Out the window, the cow out the window The steel frame out the window, the rusted candlestand; Out the window the horse, the handle-less pan, Real things. Inside the window my heart That only beats for you - a verse of Verlaine. Inside the window of my heart is a style And a showplace of onion-like construction. Inside the window is a picture of a cat And outside the window is the cat indeed Jumping up now to the top of the Roof of the garage; its paws help take it there. Inside this window is a range Of things which outside the window are like stars Arranged but huge in fashion. Outside the window is a car, is the rusted wheel of a bicycle. Inside it are words and paints; outside, smooth hair Of a rabbit, just barely seen. Inside the glass Of this window is a notebook, with little marks, They are words. Outside this window is a wall With little parts - they are stones. Inside this window Is the start, and outside is the beginning. A heart Beats. The cat leaps. The room is light, the sun is almost blinding. Inside this body is a woman, inside whom is a star Of some kind or other, which is like a uterus; and Outside the window a farm machine starts. - The Simplicity of the Unknown Past, pg. 306 From Days And Nights ... Sweeping past the florist's came the baby and the girl I am the girl! I am the baby! I am the florist who is filled with mood! I am the mood. I am the girl who is inside the baby For it is a baby girl. I am old style of life. I am the new Everything as well. I am the evening in which you docked your first kiss. And it came to the baby. And I am the boyhood of the girl Which she never has. I am the florist's unknown baby He hasn't had one yet. The florist is in a whirl So much excitement, section, outside his shop Or hers. Who is he? Where goes the baby? She Is immensely going to grow up. How much Does this rent for? It's more than a penny. It's more Than a million cents. My dear, it is life itself. Roses? Chrysanthemums? If you can't buy them I'll give Them for nothing. Oh no, I can't. Maybe my baby is allergic to their spores. So then the girl and her baby go away. Florist stands whistling Neither inside nor outside thinking about the mountains of Peru. - Girl and Baby Florist Sidewalk Pram Nineteen Seventy Something, pg. 389 From One Train: Poems ... I could never have had anything Quite as radical as all this Was by reason of having known it Was very soon to go away As that movie went away from the little theatre Crossed by our liberal eyes The other glass by the beam Orphaning the house with its bulbs Its way-walks like tusks And the cut-up scenes That straightened the glasses The steam that shows is knowing everything Is the fax to a fax of itself At daytime water came unsyphoned Spoofing our house I wore a net necktie a button Or trees with a breeze for a mouth But nothing could prevent it As nothing north or south A bagpipe failed you like Elijah Women came forth Reading and tacking fishnets to a port An old woman rode in a hansom Beer was an invidious sport Idiot agreement - and summer tide These seemed like works to be taught One kept walking "Yours to tour but mine to seek from birth" Cadillac wrecked Forgotten and evenings Boat-flat similar and signed: "No one else." - No One Else, pg. 484 From Straits: Poems ... Botticelli lived In a little house In Florence Italy He went out And painted Aphrodite Standing on some air Above a shell On some waves And he felt happy He Went into a café And cried I'll buy Everybody a drink And for me A punt e mes Celebrities thronged To look at his painting Never had anyone seen So beautiful a painted girl The real girl he painted The model For Aphrodite sits With her chin in her hand Her hand on her wrist Her elbow On a table And she cries, "When I was Naked I was believed, Will be, and am." - Vous Êtes Plus Beaux Que Vous Ne Pensiez, 1, pg. 522 From New Addresses ... At dusk light you come to bat As Georg Trakl might put it. How are you doing Aside from that, aside from the fact That you are at bat? What balls are you going to hit Into the outfield, what runs will you score, And do you think you ever will, eventually, Bat one out of the park? That would be a thrill To you and your contemporaries! Your mighty posture Takes its stand in my chest and swing swing swing Your warm up, then you take a great step Forward as the ball comes smashing toward you, home Plate. And suddenly it is evening. - To My Heart at the Close of Day, pg. 641 From A Possible World ... Pure finality of bedding - Intellectual life - This article to reassure me - Others are alive - Then unexpectedly awake Middle of the night - What are they thinking - Afraid? Probably. Succeeding At something? Likely - All night Breathing, rain. - A Review, pg. 663

Review # 2 was written on 2012-01-06 00:00:00 Craig Davis I like Kenneth Koch because he's so very different. Some of his stuff reminded me of the Beats. Some other poems were just insane and out of this world and good. Some were, er, uh, different. So to help you out with the K-man, I've narrowed down his over 700 pages to just a few poems you should check out if you want to read him: The Man The Brassiere Factory Fresh Air Permanently Variations On A Theme By William Carlos Williams (he redoes the This Is Just To Say poem, a poem that I've redone and a poem that Poetic Goddess has redone as well) Locks Sleeping With Women (lots of repetition but it gets charming) The Magic Of Numbers The Burning Mystery of Anna in 1951 To Marina (this one made me swoon--I filled up with gasps and glee and got all sentimental, amazed that love for one woman could bring someone to write so much, and then I wished I could find someone who would finally devote pages like that to me as I've written so many pages to others who never stick around--and then I got my period so it wasn't only the poem at work but it was the poem plus hormones--still a lovely poem even when the crimson wave has receded) In Bed (more repetition but reminded me of fortune cookies) Twenty Poems One Train May Hide Another (this sounded so familiar and I don't know why) On Aesthetics To The Ohio To My Twenties To Orgasms (self-explanatory) I got a lot of good ideas, especially from Kenneth Koch (which, btw, is pronounced Coke--took me a long time to realize that the spelling was different from the sound). Hopefully, I'll be writing into the wee hours soon enough.