A century ago there was bawdy humor in the poems of a Banjo Paterson or Robert Service, deliberate doggerel from an Edward Lear or Ogden Nash. Even up till the 1970s a comic poet like Richard Brautigan could gain some note. Kenneth Koch is 1 of those poets who has borne the moniker ‘comic poet’ although the only funny thing about his poetry is that its long-winded dullness actually got published. There’s no dart nor verve to his poems, so how this appellation befell him is a bit of a mystery. Here’s an annotated online bio:
Jay Kenneth Koch was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on February 27, 1925. He studied at Harvard University, where he received his Bachelor of Arts degree, and attended Columbia University for his Ph.D. As a young poet, Koch was known for his association with the New York School of poetry. [This sort of dropping of name or –ism tells the reader the poet MUST be of some import or relevance.] Originating at Harvard, where Koch met fellow students Frank O’Hara and John Ashbery, the New York School derived much of its inspiration from the works of action painters Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Larry Rivers, whom the poets met in the 1950s after settling in New York City. [This also engendered the ridiculous pseudo-form of the ‘painting poem’ wherein the poet recounts everything the painting presents.] The poetry of the New York School represented a shift away from the Confessional poets, a popular form of soul-baring poetry that the New York School found distasteful. Instead, their poems were cosmopolitan in spirit and displayed not only the influence of action painting, but of French Surrealism and European avant-gardism in general.
Many critics found Koch's early work obscure, such as Poems (1953), and the epic Ko, or A Season on Earth (1959), yet remarked upon his subsequent writing for its clarity, lyricism, and humor, such as in The Art of Love (1975), which was praised as a graceful, humorous book. His other collections of poetry include New Addresses (Alfred A. Knopf, 2000), winner of the Phi Beta Kappa Poetry Award and a finalist for the National Book Award; Straits (1998); One Train and On the Great Atlantic Rainway, Selected Poems 1950-1988 (both published in 1994), which together earned him the Bollingen Prize in 1995; Seasons of the Earth (1987); On the Edge (1986); Days and Nights (1982); The Burning Mystery of Anna in 1951 (1979); The Duplications (1977); The Pleasures of Peace (1969); When the Sun Tries to Go On (1969); Thank You (1962); and Seasons on Earth (1960). [Before the inane listing it’s important to note that when a critic calls a work ‘obscure’ that’s code for ‘bad, but gussied up as ‘deep’.]
Koch wrote plays and librettos for operas, as well. His numerous honors include 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. Koch died on July 6, 2002 from leukemia.
In a bizarre eulogy called Kenneth Koch's Seasons On Earth, noted doggerelist & doggerel promoter David Lehman summed up KK’s ideas on poetry thusly:
The
primary goal is poetry, which can be written anywhere, by anyone, and is
properly understood as a celebration of itself and all creation. Poetry was what
happened when you liberated the imagination. Poetry was joy, and what’s more
— and contrary to some highly publicized cases of suicidal, despondent or
deranged poets — you didn’t need to be in agony in order to write it, and
you didn’t need to show a solemn face to the world.
That this sentiment could
also be read as a justification for DL’s limitless pool of talentlessness is
just a coincidence. DL later praises KK’s funny poems. He also describes the
beginning of an early poem of KK’s in this manner: ‘the poem begins
audaciously with the word “Meanwhile.”’ If you are 1 of the millions
that wonders how the word meanwhile could be audacious, relax- that was
DAVID LEHMAN talking- ‘nuff said.
On to the dead man’s
dreck:
Talking To Patrizia
Patrizia doesn't want to
It is horrible it
I am always
Do you know what I did to her
She did this
Oh we are still together
Said. But this woman who abandons
If I knew her if I could see her
Why? When you are my
You don't want to have anything
Restaurant at one o'clock
I know I said. Listen I have
Then when she comes out
This works This has always worked
This god you have to do what
I would hate her You may want to consider
Find another woman. I can't. I
I'm sorry I said Patrizia to be so
You know, Patrizia says if she
Don't love her Good bye You leave
That's insane. I went but not
Something else. In Florence it's rainy
It's finished Patrizia's saying
Ah, the
vicissitudes of young love. The music is helter-skelter to say the least- so why
not just free verse it? & is there really anymore to Patrizia’s character
than what the 1st stanza says? Let’s leave it at that:
Talking To Patrizia
Patrizia doesn't want to
I
won’t even give you the obvious why the rewrite’s better. Say, let’s just
call things even if I never have to read the original again. Shiver & say-
‘David Lehman likes this crap!’
Final Score: (1-100):
Kenneth Koch’s Talking To Patrizia:
60
TOP’s Talking
To Patrizia: 65
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