To my father's business kenneth koch
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Kenneth Koch
American poet
Kenneth Koch (KOHK; February 27, 1925 – July 6, 2002) was an American poet, playwright, and professor, active from the 1950s until his death at age 77. He was a prominent poet of the New York School of poetry. This was a loose group of poets including Frank O'Hara and John Ashbery that eschewed contemporary introspective poetry in favor of an exuberant, cosmopolitan style that drew major inspiration from travel, painting, and music.
Life
Koch (pronounced coke[1]) was born Jay Kenneth Koch in Cincinnati, Ohio. He began writing poetry at an early age, discovering the work of Shelley and Keats in his teenage years. At the age of 18, he served in WWII as a U.S. Armyinfantryman in the Philippines.
After his service, he attended Harvard University, where he met future New York School poet John Ashbery. After graduating from Harvard in 1948 and moving to New York City, Koch studied for and received his Ph.D. from Columbia University.
In 1951, he met his first wife, Janice Elwood, at UC Berkeley; they married in 1954 and lived
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Kenneth Koch
Kenneth Koch was the author of numerous collections of poems, short stories, essays, and avant-garde plays. Born in 1925 in Cincinnati, Ohio, Koch received his bachelor’s degree from Harvard University and later his Ph.D. from Columbia University. While a student at Harvard, Koch met Frank O’Hara and John Ashbery. In the 1950s, the three moved to New York City; they would become known as the New York School of poets. In 1994, Koch published two books of poetry, One Train and On the Great Atlantic Railway, both of which earned him the Bollingen Prize the following year. Koch was the recipient of a Fulbright fellowship, a Guggenheim fellowship, the Frank O’Hara Prize, a National Institute of Arts and Letters award, and a Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry from the Library of Congress. He received a National Book Critics Circle nomination for One Thousand Avant-garde Plays, and his book of poetry, New Addresses, was a finalist for the National Book Award. Koch taught at Rutgers University and Brooklyn College and was the Director
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Kenneth Koch was a multi award winning writer who spent a good deal of his working life in New York City. He was a poet, playwright, novelist and musical composer and he dedicated much of his time to the New York School of Poetry where he exchanged ideas with fellow poets and taught up and coming writers all he knew about the art. He and his colleagues tried to instil a cosmopolitan, outward looking style into their students, influenced and inspired by great art, worldwide travel and music. Additionally he worked in New York schools and colleges as a teacher and he also took a great deal of pleasure from working in old people’s nursing homes.
Koch was born into comfortable circumstances in February 1925 in Cincinnati, Ohio. All through his school days he displayed a great talent for writing poetry and producing comics and he was encouraged by family and high school teachers alike. When America joined the fight in the Second World War, Kenneth was coming up to the age when he might well get drafted and he tried to prevent, or at least delay that, by enrolling at the University of
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