Overview
In paperback for the first time: Kenneth Koch’s six masterly, groundbreaking longer poems, which contain some of the poet’s most original work, full of exclamation and exaggeration but graced as well with dry wit and sophistication. Together they serve as the companion volume to the highly praised Collected Poems of Kenneth Koch.
Synopsis
In paperback for the first time: Kenneth Koch’s six masterly, groundbreaking longer poems, which contain some of the poet’s most original work, full of exclamation and exaggeration but graced as well with dry wit and sophistication. Together they serve as the companion volume to the highly praised Collected Poems of Kenneth Koch.
Publishers Weekly
One doesn't go to Koch to experience the opening of the poet's mind to the world (Ashbery's stated desire), but for urbane, often vaudevillian, entertainments. This volume-a companion to 2005's Collected Poems (also Knopf), which gathers all of Koch's shorter poetry-shows Koch stretching out in his six extended works. The early Dada epic "When the Sun Tries to Go On" is a 60-plus page list of syntactical detritus, punctuated by bizarre apostrophes: "O tuxedo/ May conceited lobster!" "Ko, or a Season on Earth" is Koch's masterpiece, a mock epic in Byronic stanzas about a Japanese baseball player who hits it big, punctuated this time by impossible synchronicities: "Meanwhile the entire continent of Asia/ Was moving sideways unpredictably/.../ Hawaii, meanwhile, feeling simply great/ Was speeding toward acceptance as a state." "Impressions of Africa" shows Koch opening up a more personal space: the poem is a journal of his long journey to Africa. At last, there is a psychological element (of sorts), as Koch finds himself silenced: "I look at nothing for a while." This book may change some opinions on Koch; readers may ask whether his prodigious formal inventiveness thrives given more room, or if the poems remain surface-oriented, like a body of wate that never moves but looks lively wherever you are watching. (Oct.)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business InformationEditorials
Publishers Weekly
One doesn't go to Koch to experience the opening of the poet's mind to the world (Ashbery's stated desire), but for urbane, often vaudevillian, entertainments. This volume-a companion to 2005's Collected Poems (also Knopf), which gathers all of Koch's shorter poetry-shows Koch stretching out in his six extended works. The early Dada epic "When the Sun Tries to Go On" is a 60-plus page list of syntactical detritus, punctuated by bizarre apostrophes: "O tuxedo/ May conceited lobster!" "Ko, or a Season on Earth" is Koch's masterpiece, a mock epic in Byronic stanzas about a Japanese baseball player who hits it big, punctuated this time by impossible synchronicities: "Meanwhile the entire continent of Asia/ Was moving sideways unpredictably/.../ Hawaii, meanwhile, feeling simply great/ Was speeding toward acceptance as a state." "Impressions of Africa" shows Koch opening up a more personal space: the poem is a journal of his long journey to Africa. At last, there is a psychological element (of sorts), as Koch finds himself silenced: "I look at nothing for a while." This book may change some opinions on Koch; readers may ask whether his prodigious formal inventiveness thrives given more room, or if the poems remain surface-oriented, like a body of wate that never moves but looks lively wherever you are watching. (Oct.)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information