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Days and Nights
- GenresPoetry
Hardcover
First published October 1, 1982
13 people want to read
About the author
Kenneth Koch
110 books88 followersKenneth Koch is most often recognized as one of the four most prominent poets of the 1950s-1960s poetic movement "the New York School of Poetry" along with Frank O'Hara, John Ashbery and James Schuyler. The New York School adopted the avant-garde movement in a style often called the "new" avant-garde, drawing on Abstract Expressionism, French surrealism and stream-of-consciousness writing in the attempt to create a fresh genre free from cliché. In his anthology The New York Poets, Mark Ford writes, "In their reaction against the serious, ironic, ostentatiously well-made lyric that dominated the post-war poetry scene, they turned to the work of an eclectic range of literary iconoclasts, eccentrics and experimenters."
Fiercely anti-academic and anti-establishment, Koch's attitude and aesthetic were dubbed by John Ashbery his "missionary zeal." Ford calls him "the New York School poet most ready to engage in polemic with the poetic establishment, and the one most determined to promote the work of himself and his friends to a wider audience." Koch died of leukemia at age 77, leaving a legacy of numerous anthologies of both short and long poems, avant-garde plays and short stories, in addition to nonfiction works dealing with aesthetics and teaching poetry to children and senior citizens.
Fiercely anti-academic and anti-establishment, Koch's attitude and aesthetic were dubbed by John Ashbery his "missionary zeal." Ford calls him "the New York School poet most ready to engage in polemic with the poetic establishment, and the one most determined to promote the work of himself and his friends to a wider audience." Koch died of leukemia at age 77, leaving a legacy of numerous anthologies of both short and long poems, avant-garde plays and short stories, in addition to nonfiction works dealing with aesthetics and teaching poetry to children and senior citizens.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 23, 2022
MORNINGS IN BED
Are energetic mornings.
SNOW IN BED
When we got out of bed
It was snowing.
MEN IN BED
All over Paris
Men are in bed.
BEAUTIFUL GIRL IN BED
Why I am happy to be here.
LONG RELATIONSHIPS IN BED
The springs are the bedposts
Are ready the minute we come in.
DOLLS IN BED
With little girls.
HAMMER AND NAILS IN BED
To make it better
They are making it a better bed
And a bigger bed, firmer and larger
And finer bed. So the hammer and nails in the bed
And the carpenter's finger
And thumb and his eyes and his shoulder.
Bang! Bang! Smap! The hammer and nails in bed.
SHEEP IN BED
The sheep got into the bed
By mistake.
BUYING A NEW BED
One of the first things you did
Was buy a new bed.
WINDOW IN BED
I looked at you
And you looked back.
MARRIED IN BED
We'll be married in bed.
The preachers, the witnesses, and all our families
Will also be in bed.
POETRY BED
Whenas in bed
Then, then
OTHER POETRY BED
Shall I compare you to a summer's bed?
You are more beautiful.
ORCHIDS IN BED
She placed orchids in the bed
On that dark blue winter morning.
LYING IN BED
Bed with Spain in it
Bed with Gibraltar in it
Bed of art!
LOVERS IN BED
Are lovers no more
Than lovers on the street.
(See Picasso's "Pair of Young Mountebanks", FC 533,
Greuze's "Notes", or hear Mozart's "Fleichtscausenmusik", Kochel 427)
SOME BED
Once
Held
This
All
GOD IN BED
Christ
Was not
Born
(And did
Not die)
In a bed.
LEGER IN BED
Above our apartment
In 1955
Lived Fernand Leger.
SHOUTING IN BED
We wake up
To the sound of shouts.
FRIENDS IN BED
Sleep well.
ANGELIC CEREMONY IN BED
Putting on the sheets.
MYSTERY OF BED
She takes it for granted
That he will stay up all night long.
WORKMEN IN BED
With workmen's wives
And workmen's girl friends
And other workmen
And dolls.
ACAPULCO IN BED
In Mexico, with blue shimmering water,
Acapulco is in bed.
[...]
* * *
Sweeping past the florist's came the baby and the girl
I am the girl! I am the baby!
I am the florist who is filled with mood!
I am the mood. I am the girl who is inside the baby
For it is a baby girl. I am old style of life. I am the new
Everything as well. I am the evening in which you docked your first kiss.
And it came to the baby. And I am the boyhood of the girl
Which she never has. I am the florist's unknown baby
He hasn't had one yet. The florist is in a whirl
So much excitement, section, outside his shop
Or hers. Who is he? Where goes the baby? She
Is immensely going to grow up. How much
Does this rent for? It's more than a penny. It's more
Than a million cents. My dear, it is life itself. Roses?
Chrysanthemums? If you can't buy them I'll give
Them for nothing. Oh no, I can't.
Maybe my baby is allergic to their spores.
So then the girl and her baby go away. Florist stands whistling
Neither inside nor outside thinking about the mountains of Peru.
* * *
1
The diary is open at two o'clock.
Words of love are in it! Words of passion and of love!
2
HEROIC STANDARD
The street winds slowly through the meadow
Where a city once was. Thousands of bluets crawl to cover it
But the street winds on.
3
1958
The violets in the tempest withered, shrunk.
The toilet flushed. The air came liberally in the windows.
Workers went on strike. Somebody else was crazed by somebody else.
4
At the fish market we walk back an forth.
You were thinner. My doctorate was yet unsought.
I had produced "Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams".
The grammar mistakes were everywhere, I thought.
A view was ours past the clinic.
Someone was starting a shop. Another one, this one,
That one, lived in a chateau. In Italy that's a palace.
I don't like him. We figured out
Everybody running about. Past the streetcar turn-
Around, dark white violets, breakfast, tones
And the roller skates slick on the cement, or tiles.
[...]
Are energetic mornings.
SNOW IN BED
When we got out of bed
It was snowing.
MEN IN BED
All over Paris
Men are in bed.
BEAUTIFUL GIRL IN BED
Why I am happy to be here.
LONG RELATIONSHIPS IN BED
The springs are the bedposts
Are ready the minute we come in.
DOLLS IN BED
With little girls.
HAMMER AND NAILS IN BED
To make it better
They are making it a better bed
And a bigger bed, firmer and larger
And finer bed. So the hammer and nails in the bed
And the carpenter's finger
And thumb and his eyes and his shoulder.
Bang! Bang! Smap! The hammer and nails in bed.
SHEEP IN BED
The sheep got into the bed
By mistake.
BUYING A NEW BED
One of the first things you did
Was buy a new bed.
WINDOW IN BED
I looked at you
And you looked back.
MARRIED IN BED
We'll be married in bed.
The preachers, the witnesses, and all our families
Will also be in bed.
POETRY BED
Whenas in bed
Then, then
OTHER POETRY BED
Shall I compare you to a summer's bed?
You are more beautiful.
ORCHIDS IN BED
She placed orchids in the bed
On that dark blue winter morning.
LYING IN BED
Bed with Spain in it
Bed with Gibraltar in it
Bed of art!
LOVERS IN BED
Are lovers no more
Than lovers on the street.
(See Picasso's "Pair of Young Mountebanks", FC 533,
Greuze's "Notes", or hear Mozart's "Fleichtscausenmusik", Kochel 427)
SOME BED
Once
Held
This
All
GOD IN BED
Christ
Was not
Born
(And did
Not die)
In a bed.
LEGER IN BED
Above our apartment
In 1955
Lived Fernand Leger.
SHOUTING IN BED
We wake up
To the sound of shouts.
FRIENDS IN BED
Sleep well.
ANGELIC CEREMONY IN BED
Putting on the sheets.
MYSTERY OF BED
She takes it for granted
That he will stay up all night long.
WORKMEN IN BED
With workmen's wives
And workmen's girl friends
And other workmen
And dolls.
ACAPULCO IN BED
In Mexico, with blue shimmering water,
Acapulco is in bed.
[...]
- In Bed, pg. 3-6
* * *
Sweeping past the florist's came the baby and the girl
I am the girl! I am the baby!
I am the florist who is filled with mood!
I am the mood. I am the girl who is inside the baby
For it is a baby girl. I am old style of life. I am the new
Everything as well. I am the evening in which you docked your first kiss.
And it came to the baby. And I am the boyhood of the girl
Which she never has. I am the florist's unknown baby
He hasn't had one yet. The florist is in a whirl
So much excitement, section, outside his shop
Or hers. Who is he? Where goes the baby? She
Is immensely going to grow up. How much
Does this rent for? It's more than a penny. It's more
Than a million cents. My dear, it is life itself. Roses?
Chrysanthemums? If you can't buy them I'll give
Them for nothing. Oh no, I can't.
Maybe my baby is allergic to their spores.
So then the girl and her baby go away. Florist stands whistling
Neither inside nor outside thinking about the mountains of Peru.
- Girl and Baby Florist Sidewalk Pram Nineteen Seventy Something, pg. 22
* * *
1
The diary is open at two o'clock.
Words of love are in it! Words of passion and of love!
2
HEROIC STANDARD
The street winds slowly through the meadow
Where a city once was. Thousands of bluets crawl to cover it
But the street winds on.
3
1958
The violets in the tempest withered, shrunk.
The toilet flushed. The air came liberally in the windows.
Workers went on strike. Somebody else was crazed by somebody else.
4
At the fish market we walk back an forth.
You were thinner. My doctorate was yet unsought.
I had produced "Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams".
The grammar mistakes were everywhere, I thought.
A view was ours past the clinic.
Someone was starting a shop. Another one, this one,
That one, lived in a chateau. In Italy that's a palace.
I don't like him. We figured out
Everybody running about. Past the streetcar turn-
Around, dark white violets, breakfast, tones
And the roller skates slick on the cement, or tiles.
[...]
- Twenty Poems, pg. 30
October 15, 2019
"Meanwhile, grasses matted,
The leaves winced, ideas one had had in earliest childhood
days
Were surprisingly becoming succinct, maybe just before
vanishing
Or turning into something you would feel like a belt,
Circling but not in hand."
The leaves winced, ideas one had had in earliest childhood
days
Were surprisingly becoming succinct, maybe just before
vanishing
Or turning into something you would feel like a belt,
Circling but not in hand."
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews