Tag Archives: Kenneth Koch

Kenneth Koch

Kenneth Koch (1925-2002) is often linked to the founding of the New York School poets in the 1950s, a group that includes John Ashbery, Frank O’Hara, and Barbara Guest. The seemingly spontaneous, cosmopolitan and exuberant poetry he wrote helped define not only characteristics of the New York School, but Koch’s work in New York City public schools.

“I was onto this new way of writing that I could tell people about, and help them to write, give them feelings of power, confidence, excitement,” Koch told Teachers & Writers Collaborative in an interview. Often, getting students to feel this excitement involved opening them up to poetry in the first place, which initially proved difficult.  "A lot of the best writers in that school already hated poetry,” Koch said, when talking about his work at P.S. 61, where he started teaching in 1968. He blamed some of this hatred on what he called “essay-poems,” poetry that was overly academic and that contained obligatory allusions to figures like Helen of Troy or Cuchulain. Koch wanted to make language fresh and concrete for his students. (more...)