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sionisioni's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
funny
inspiring
lighthearted
mysterious
reflective
4.0
superfamoustia's review against another edition
5.0
If you're a fan, read his plays as well. "The Gold Standard" is a great, kooky and strangely moving collection, though I could say that about his poems as well. I was once in a production of his one-act, "Edward & Christine," in which I played a rabbit, a statue, a nymph, a temple column, and an elephant. And that's not even all of it. AWESOME.
spacestationtrustfund's review against another edition
2.0
I'm not really a fan of Kenneth Koch's poetry, and I'm definitely not a fan of this cover art, but there's one poem in the collection that almost makes it all worth it, "In Love With You":
IO what a physical effect it has on me
To dive forever into the light blue sea
Of your acquaintance! Ah, but dearest friends,
Like forms, are finished, as life has ends! Still,
It is beautiful, when October
Is over, and February is over,
To sit in the starch of my shirt, and to dream of your sweet
Ways! As if the world were a taxi, you enter it, then
Reply (to no one), “Let’s go five or six blocks.”
Isn’t the blue stream that runs past you a translation from the Russian?
Aren’t my eyes bigger than love?
Isn’t this history, and aren’t we a couple of ruins?
Is Carthage Pompeii? is the pillow the bed? is the sun
What glues our heads together? O midnight! O midnight!
Is love what we are,
Or has happiness come to me in a private car
That’s so very small I’m amazed to see it there?IIWe walk through the park in the sun, and you say, “There’s a spider
Of shadow touching the bench, when morning’s begun.” I love you.
I love you fame I love you raining sun I love you cigarettes I love you love
I love you daggers I love smiles daggers and symbolism.IIIInside the symposium of your sweetest look’s
Sunflower awning by the nurse-faced chrysanthemums childhood
Again represents a summer spent sticking knives into porcelain raspberries, when China’s
Still a country! Oh, King Edward abdicated years later, that’s
Exactly when. If you were seventy thousand years old, and I were a pill,
I know I could cure your headache, like playing baseball in drinking-water, as baskets
Of towels sweetly touch the bathroom floor! O benches of nothing
Appear and reappear—electricity! I’d love to be how
You are, as if
The world were new, and the selves were blue
Which we don
Until it’s dawn,
Until evening puts on
The gray hooded selves and the light brown selves of...
Water! your tear-colored nail polish
Kisses me! and the lumberyard seems new
As a calm
On the sea, where, like pigeons,
I feel so mutated, sad, so breezed, so revivified, and still so unabdicated—
Not like an edge of land coming over the sea!
partypete's review against another edition
5.0
When I now speak of my favorite poets, Kenneth Koch is definitely among the top of my list of favorites. Genius and wildly inconsistent, his work varies from incisive and brilliant meditations to nonsensical jargon. Many of these poems are repetitive or make no sense, but the thrill of reading through this was incomparable to anything else I’ve read. The book I’ve laughed at the most.
jocelovesclassics's review against another edition
2.0
As Koch would say himself, “the world never tires of bad poetry, and for this reason we have come to this garden, which is another world.”
By all accounts I should of loved everything Koch wrote. He writes of New York, recognizing what I know all too well. He employs references that display his intellect, showcasing what a brilliant man he was. I can go on by the use of form and technique, but I will spare you the details.
Yet, I found myself skipping most of. Perhaps, when I come back to it, I will find a new appreciation. But for every poem that I found enjoyable, I had to skip three pages.
It read to me more like a journal than a completed published poetry. If you love this of style I would recommend Koch. I can feel him coming home and writhing all that had happened through the words. The excitement with newfound obsession that engrosses all of your poetry.
Like a journal there is a lot of fluffy and repetition. It is not always that particular bad, but a first draft. Other times it was a concept that was not well executed. Or just bad.
Though, I admire Koch’s attempts. He is quirky and not afraid of it. He is self aware which made his poetry much more bearable (this is a compliment). If a poem was bad, I can still pick out a line that made the reading experience worth it.
By all accounts I should of loved everything Koch wrote. He writes of New York, recognizing what I know all too well. He employs references that display his intellect, showcasing what a brilliant man he was. I can go on by the use of form and technique, but I will spare you the details.
Yet, I found myself skipping most of. Perhaps, when I come back to it, I will find a new appreciation. But for every poem that I found enjoyable, I had to skip three pages.
It read to me more like a journal than a completed published poetry. If you love this of style I would recommend Koch. I can feel him coming home and writhing all that had happened through the words. The excitement with newfound obsession that engrosses all of your poetry.
Like a journal there is a lot of fluffy and repetition. It is not always that particular bad, but a first draft. Other times it was a concept that was not well executed. Or just bad.
Though, I admire Koch’s attempts. He is quirky and not afraid of it. He is self aware which made his poetry much more bearable (this is a compliment). If a poem was bad, I can still pick out a line that made the reading experience worth it.
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