CLASSIFICATION
Swallow ID:
1294
Partner Institution:
Concordia University
Source Collection Label:
SGWU Reading Series-Concordia University Department of English fonds
Series:
The Poetry Series
Sub Series:
SGWU Reading Series-Concordia University Department of English fonds
ITEM DESCRIPTION
Title:
Kenneth Koch at Sir George Williams University, The Poetry Series, 19 February 1971
Title Source:
Cataloguer
Title Note:
"KENNETH KOCH Recorded February 19, 1971 3.75 ips on 1 mil. tape, 1/2 track Fair quality" written on sticker on the back of the tape's box. KENNETH KOCH I006/SR39 written on sticker on the spine of the tape's box. I006-11-039 written on sticker on the reel.
Language:
English
Production Context:
Documentary recording
Genre:
Reading: Poetry
Identifiers:
[]
Rights
CREATORS
Name:
Koch, Kenneth
Dates:
1925-2002
Role:
"Author",
"Performer"
Notes:
Poet, playwright, author and teacher Kenneth Koch was born on February 27, 1925 in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1943, after completing high school, Koch served in the United States Army until 1945. He then enrolled at Harvard University, and received his B.A. degree in 1948 in English literature and writing. Koch then entered the Ph.D. program at Columbia University in New York City, through which he traveled on a Fulbright scholarship to France to study avant-garde poetry. In New York, he met poets John Ashbery and Frank O’Hara, the three of whom would be coined the New York School of Poets. Koch published his first collection of poetry, Poems (Tibor de Nagy Gallery, 1953), and wrote a play, Little Red Riding Hood (1953), followed by Ko; or, A Season on Earth (Grove Press, 1959). During this time Koch taught at Rutgers and Brooklyn Colleges before he completed his Ph.D. in 1959. Koch’s second play, Bertha, debuted in 1960, along with a third collection of poetry, Permanently (Tiber Press, 1960). In the early 60’s, Koch published plays, including George Washington Crossing the Delaware, The Construction of Boston (both in 1962), Guinevere; or, The Death of the Kangaroo, (1964). Koch was also a brilliant teacher, creating poetry and reading programs for grade school students in New York City public schools, which he won a Harbison Award for teaching. He published his experiences in Wishes, Lies and Dreams: Teaching Children to Write Poetry (Chelsea House, 1970) and Rose, Where Did You Get That Red?: Teaching Great Poetry to Children (Random House, 1973), which won a Ohioana Book Award and a Christopher Book Award. He also launched a similar program for the elderly, as described in I Never Told Anybody: Teaching Poetry Writing in a Nursing Home (Random House, 1977). During this time Koch published numerous books of verse, namely The Pleasures of Peace and Other Poems (Grove Press, 1969), When the Sun Tries to Go On (Black Sparrow, 1969), Sleeping with Women (Black Sparrow Press, 1969), the highly praised The Art of Love (Random House, 1975) which won the National Institute of Arts and Letters award in 1976, The Burning Mystery of Anna in 1951 (Random House, 1979). A prolific writer, Koch wrote over forty books and plays, including Days and Nights (Random House, 1982), On the Edge (Alfred A. Knopf, 1986) which won an Award of Merit for Poetry from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, Selected Poems, 1950-1982 (Random House, 1985), a book of short dramatic selections One Thousand Avant-garde Plays (Knopf, 1988) won a National Book Critic’s Circle nomination, Selected Poems, (Carcanet, 1991), On the Great Atlantic Rainway: Selected Poems, 1950-1988 (Knopf, 1994) and his last book, New Addresses (Knopf, 2000). 1995 was a big year for Koch, as he was awarded the Bollingen Prize for a lifetime achievement to poetry, and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Subsequently, Koch received the Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry in 1996, the Chevalier de l’ordre des arts et des lettres in France in 1999, and the Phi Beta Kappa Poetry Award. Kenneth Koch died of leukemia on July 6, 2002 in New York City.
CONTRIBUTORS
Name:
Bowering, George
Dates:
1935-
Role:
"Series organizer",
"Presenter"
MATERIAL DESCRIPTION
Recording Type:
Analogue
AV Type:
Audio
Material Designation:
Reel to Reel
Physical Composition:
Magnetic Tape
Extent:
1/4 inch
Playing Speed:
3 3/4 ips
Track Configuration:
Half-track
Playback Mode:
Mono
Tape Brand:
Scotch
Sound Quality:
Good
DIGITAL FILE DESCRIPTION
File Path:
files.spokenweb.ca>concordia>sgw>audio>all_mp3
Duration:
01:22:37
Size:
103.7 MB
Content:
George Bowering
00:00:00
Most people will have seen, probably, the little promo sheet that went out about Kenneth
talking about all his various books et cetera, so I'll keep this very short. Those that have been involved in reading American poetry over the past few years will naturally know who Kenneth Koch is, that he along with Frank O'Hara
probably invented modern American poetry in New York City
, and it's, and he's also been in the news lately in the various, Slick magazine in the United States
as a teacher of poetry, a very important teacher of poetry to kids in schools. And he's the only man I know who's been able to write what I think is probably an epic in the American language. So I'd like to make this as fast as I can and introduce Mr. Kenneth Koch.
Audience
00:00:58
Applause.
Unknown
00:01:03
[Cut or edit in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].
Kenneth Koch
00:01:04
The first poem I'll read is called "Spring".
Kenneth Koch
00:01:08
Reads "Spring" [from Thank You and Other Poems].
Kenneth Koch
00:02:36
The next poem I want to read is called "Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams". I love Williams'
work, and I usually only write parodies of people whose work I like a lot. This parody is based on a poem of Williams, well, actually, on a certain characteristic I saw in Williams' work for a long time which I like, which is sort of, the idea that if you really like something enough and if you want to do it enough, it's okay to do it. And I saw certain insane possibilities of this viewpoint. This is specifically a parody of a poem which goes, "This is just to say I've eaten the plums in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast. Forgive me, they were so cold and so delicious". It's really a nice poem, but it seemed to me there was a little streak of insanity running through it. It's called, "Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams".
Kenneth Koch
00:03:28
Reads "Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams" [from Thank You and Other Poems].
Kenneth Koch
00:04:33
I'd like to read another short poem, this is called "You Were Wearing".
Kenneth Koch
00:04:38
Reads "You Were Wearing" [from Thank You and Other Poems].
Kenneth Koch
00:06:37
I'm trying to find the ideal lights still, it’s--okay, I think that's probably a bit better. The next thing that I want to read is a play called "E.KOLOGY". It's...E.KOLOGY is the name of the hero, it's like capital "E," period, capital "KOLOGY." I'd like to say something about this play. I read it at the University of Chicago
last year, and some students thought that I was making fun of the ecology movement. I'm not, and I would see to it that if it were produced that that was not the case. It just seemed to me that the ecology movement was such a, like a natural cause for pleasure that it wouldn't really do to be totally solemn about it. The, I wrote this to be performed on Earth Day
, in New York last year in April, but they were supposed to have all these things in Union Square
and it just ended up being a lot of light shows and speeches, I think, because they couldn't get the actors together and the lights and the stage and everything. It was done in Philadelphia
, did anyone see it, by any chance? Probably not. I didn't see it. I didn't even know it was done. In any case. E.KOLOGY.
Kenneth Koch
00:07:44
Reads E.KOLOGY - Act One, Scene One [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].
Kenneth Koch
00:09:38
Reads E.KOLOGY - Act One, Scene Two [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].
Kenneth Koch
00:11:19
Reads E.KOLOGY - Act One, Scene Three [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].
Kenneth Koch
00:12:06
Reads E.KOLOGY - Act Two [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].
Kenneth Koch
00:13:54
Reads E.KOLOGY - Act Three, Scene One [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].
Kenneth Koch
00:14:24
Reads E.KOLGOY - Act Three, Scene Two [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].
Kenneth Koch
00:16:04
Reads E.KOLOGY - Act Four [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].
Kenneth Koch
00:17:30
Reads E.KOLOGY - Act Five [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].
Audience
00:19:34
Applause.
Kenneth Koch
00:19:44
While you're in the mood for theatre, I'll read a film script I wrote which I'd be delighted if someone would do. No one's ever done it. Apparently it would cost a great deal to do this, although it's very simple. It's called “Youth”.
Kenneth Koch
00:19:57
Reads "Youth" [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].
Kenneth Koch
00:21:36
I don't hear any takers unless...Let's see. This is a very short poem called, "Poem".
Kenneth Koch
00:21:53
Reads "Poem" [from The Pleasures of Peace and Other Poems].
Kenneth Koch
00:22:11
This, this poem is called "Ma Provence", and my interest in writing it was the different way that French and English sound to me. "Ma Provence".
Kenneth Koch
00:22:23
Reads "Ma Provence" [from The Pleasures of Peace and Other Poems].
Kenneth Koch
00:22:52
I usually translate the French, but I guess here I don't really have to. I'll read a...the French is very banal, it means, "In my Provence the wheat is always green, the girls are pretty, they love me madly, they never die in my Provence". This poem is called "Great Beauty".
Kenneth Koch
00:23:14
Reads "Great Beauty".
Kenneth Koch
00:23:31
This poem is called "Little Known Historical Fact".
Kenneth Koch
00:23:35
Reads "Little Known Historical Fact".
Kenneth Koch
00:23:48
Charlemagne
is an Italian. [Audience laughter]. This is called..."Getting Back on Land".
Kenneth Koch
00:24:06
Reads "Getting Back on Land".
Audience
00:24:22
Laughter.
Kenneth Koch
00:24:29
This, the next thing I want to read is part of a long poem I've been writing in the last year. George
mentioned an epic poem I wrote called “Ko”, which I wrote about, oh twelve or fourteen years ago, and it's a poem...that's “Ko”, there it is, and it's about a hundred and twenty pages, it's in ottava rima, which is a stanza that Ariosto
used in Orlando Furioso
and it's also the stanza that Byron
used in Don Juan
. It rhymes ABABABCC. And...I really like “Ko” a lot. It's a poem about a, the main character is a Japanese baseball player, a pitcher, who throws the ball so hard he knocks the grandstand down with every pitch. And there are a lot of other characters in it. When I wrote the poem I really was very happy, I was living in Florence
, in a villino, and, sort of outside of town on the Viale Michelangelo, and what I tried to do in “Ko” is like to put in every pleasant thing I'd ever experienced in my life, and the poem is kind of happy and optimistic. And I always wanted to continue it, because I liked writing that way. And I never could, because the continuation was always sort of in the style of “Ko” exactly and not as good. It sort of lost that particular feeling. Then I finally was able to start doing it again, recently, but I noticed as I went on writing the poem that it had changed a good deal, that my idea about life and the world was not quite the same, naturally, partly because it changes in me, and partly because it changes in the world, but I don't want to get into metaphysical questions. In any case, the first thing I want to read from this poem is the, like the “Prologue”, which explains my problems in continuing this very happy poem fourteen years afterwards. The only, I think the only thing that needs explaining that I haven't explained is that “Ko” ends with the line, "Huddle, meanwhile, was flaking at the knees." Now Huddle is a, like an Englishman in “Ko” who dies of mold fever in Rome
, and when he dies he turns into a statue which is set up near the Villa Giulia
in Rome. And all of the other characters that have been killed sort of turn into statues and start coming back to life, and this is a sign that Huddle is coming back to life but he's flaking at the knees. In any case, that's referred to at the beginning of the “Prologue”.
Kenneth Koch
00:27:00
Reads "Prologue".
Kenneth Koch
00:34:08
That's the end of the “Prologue”. I want to read the first episode in the poem, now. I realize there was another, perhaps incomprehensible thing in the “Prologue”. Pana Grady...Pana Grady's apartment was a place on...Central Park West
where a lot of parties were held for Upper and Lower Bohemia in the days...well, it was about five or six years ago. Anyway. That's the end of the “Prologue”, which I'm not sure I'm finally going to attach to the poem, since I usually eliminate prologues. And this is the beginning of the poem.
Kenneth Koch
00:34:55
Reads ["Episode I”].
Kenneth Koch
00:41:07
That's the end of the first part. To tell you what happens in this poem would take as long as reading the whole poem, which I don't have time to do. I think I'd like to read some brief, improvisational plays. I wrote these plays to be done at The Living Theatre
, though I knew they wouldn't do them. Somebody asked me to write some improvisational plays, it's really, it's really great, you know, writes it with some actors that want to do it, and I'd, I'd seen some improvisational plays and it seemed to me that the only emotions that actors could improvise were...let's see, passion, nostalgia, self-hatred, anxiety, and then make narcissism and then make topical references, and I decide to really throw sort of a curve at actors and give them something that would really be hard to improvise. My penalty has been that these plays have never been done. The first one I'd like to read...I'd be very glad if they were, could be given a premiere here in Canada
. "Mexico City".
Kenneth Koch
00:42:18
Reads "Mexico City" [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].
Kenneth Koch
00:43:13
The next one is called "The Lost Feed".
Kenneth Koch
00:43:16
Reads "The Lost Feed" [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].
Kenneth Koch
00:44:12
The next play is called "Coil Supreme".
Kenneth Koch
00:44:17
Reads "Coil Supreme" [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].
Kenneth Koch
00:44:48
The last improvisational play I'll read is the one that has always moved me the most at the thought of production. It's called "The Gold Standard".
Kenneth Koch
00:44:57
Reads "The Gold Standard" [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].
Kenneth Koch
00:45:54
I think I'd like to read a rather long poem called...my present plan, which--I don't want to really ruin people's evening, since I didn't start until 9:30, I think the poems that I would like to read will last until 11. So, it's twenty-five after ten now, I don't want to keep anybody up to late or anything. [Audience laughter]. If...Don't feel bad about leaving if you have to go, I want to read these two rather long poems. This is called "The Pleasures of Peace". I should say something about this poem, I wrote it...I started to write it, oh, three years ago, or whenever it was, maybe it was four years ago, but it took me a long time to write it. I guess about three years ago I started. It was at the moment of the, when there really was a lot of happiness in the peace movement in the United States. And it was like the first Peace Marches on Fifth Avenue, and people were jumping up and down for peace, and dancing for peace, and it really seemed as though what people were doing was going to do some good. And I remember feeling very excited in the first set of mass peace activities I was in because, being a poet, and having been brought up in America and everything and like almost all the other poets and artists I knew I sort of felt like a social outcast a little bit. And then I found, in the midst of the peace movement, like there were hundreds of thousands of people who sort of felt the same way about a lot of things, it was nice. And there was something very sort of grand and exciting about the peace movement which does not have anything to do with the issues at all, it was just a lot of fun. In a way it was sort of...it was very pleasant. There were a few other things that motivated this poem. One was I was very annoyed at a lot of my fellow-poets who were going around, giving, in groups to colleges, giving poetry readings for peace. Now there were two things about this that annoyed me, three things. One was that I wasn't doing it. But that, I think, was a minor thing A second thing was that...who did they really think they were trying to convert, like college students who came to poetry readings? I mean, college students who come to poetry readings are not usually in favour of war. And in the second-place, all the poems they read for peace were the sort of things that would make you want to go out and kill people, like "Lyndon Johnson
, you, fuck the pregnant woman who's lying with her guts streaming out," [audience laughter] and they weren't, they didn't really...they didn't really seem like peace poems to me. It...And I felt it was sort of exploitative on their part to do that. So I wanted to write a--I'd never written a political poem and I wanted very much to write a poem, I had very strong feelings about the Vietnam War
, and I wanted to write a poem against the war but which really, was really a poem, a positive poem about peace. I found it terribly hard to do, and I never worked so long on any poem. The fact that I worked so long on it does not mean that it's any better than anything else I ever wrote, but it was just hard, because I kept trying to put in sort of, things about suffering and so on, and they would jump out of the poem the way an artificial heart, I mean the way a transferred heart is sometimes rejected by the body. And I realized I was sort of stuck with writing a poem that was, like, one of my poems, it was really sort of a positive poem about peace. Another problem is that if you write a poem about the pleasures of peace it means you're writing a poem about the pleasures of life. And it's endless, in any case. That's about enough of that for now. It took me over a year to write, it was mainly the last part I couldn't write, since I didn't want to have sort of a literary copout at the end, and I didn't want to sort of end up, oh well, anyway. It's just a poem. The only thing--I got varied reactions to the poem. One...some dopey poet friend of mine came over and said, "Boy, you really put the peace movement down". And I haven't spoken to him very much since then. But then, a better reaction was that I got, some guy called me up and asked me if he could use this poem as his draft resistance statement. And I said you're going to languish in prison for a long time because, you know, judges don't like poetry. But anyway. Now just forget everything I've said [audience laughter] and I'll read this poem. And there's a pause. "The Pleasures of Peace". Oh! Another thing. [Audience laughter]. I read this poem in London
last year, and I got this dopey review in the Times
by, who was it....I'm not sure. And he said, "Kenneth Koch's 'Pleasures of Peace' is a very interesting poem but since he mentions the name of all his friends which we can't be expected to know”--like about 90% of the people in this poem are imaginary. They, they're not my friends. [Audience laughter]. Okay. Like Georgio Finogo is not a real person, okay?. "The Pleasures of Peace".
Kenneth Koch
00:51:15
Reads "The Pleasures of Peace" [from The Pleasures of Peace and Other Poems].
Audience
01:11:09
Applause.
Kenneth Koch
01:11:15
Thank you.
Kenneth Koch
01:11:22
I want to read another poem which will take about seven minutes, but just to rest up I'll read a short poem...I can't find one short enough...Oh, this is called "An X-Ray of Utah".
Kenneth Koch
01:12:00
Reads "An X-Ray of Utah" [from The Pleasures of Peace and Other Poems].
Kenneth Koch
01:12:08
Well that's the shortest poem I ever wrote. [Audience laughter]. Except, there's one that's not in any of my books which is called "Tennis", which is the same length.
Kenneth Koch
01:12:19
Reads "Tennis".
Kenneth Koch
01:12:29
Oh, I think I'll read a few movie scripts. I'll just read a few. This is really for, this is from something called "Ten Films", but I'll just read a few of them, which are my favourites. One of the films is called "Sheep Harbour".
Kenneth Koch
01:12:44
Reads "Sheep Harbour" [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].
Kenneth Koch
01:12:57
Like, the camera could sort of show this for a long time.
Kenneth Koch
01:13:03
Reads "Oval Gold" [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].
Kenneth Koch
01:13:19
I'll just read one more of these films. This is called "The Cemetery".
Kenneth Koch
01:13:24
Reads "The Cemetery" [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].
Kenneth Koch
01:13:49
I'll read this one last poem which is called "Sleeping with Women”. "Sleeping with Women".
Kenneth Koch
01:13:54
Reads "Sleeping with Women" [from The Pleasures of Peace and Other Poems].
END
01:22:37
Notes:
Kenneth Koch reads from Thank You and Other Poems (Grove Press, 1962), The Pleasures of Peace and Other Poems (Grove Press, 1969), works published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971 (Random House, 1973) and from other unknown sources.
00:00- George Bowering introduces Kenneth Koch. [INDEX: ‘promo sheet’, American poetry, Frank O’Hara, modern American poetry in New York City, Slick magazine, teacher of poetry, epic in the American Language.]
01:04- Kenneth Koch introduces “Spring”. [INDEX: from Thank You and Other Poems (Grove Press, 1962).]
01:08- Reads “Spring”.
02:36- Introduces “Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams”. [INDEX: parodies, Williams poem “This is Just to Say”, insanity; from Thank You and Other Poems (Grove Press, 1962).]
03:28- Reads “Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams”.
04:33- Introduces “You Were Wearing”. [INDEX: short poem from Thank You and Other Poems (Grove Press, 1962).]
04:38- Reads “You Were Wearing”.
06:37- Introduces “E. KOLOGY”. [INDEX: play, hero, capital letters, read at the University of Chicago, ecology movement, performed on Earth Day in New York in April, Union Square, Philadelphia; from A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971 (Random House, 1973).]
07:44- Reads “E.KOLOGY”- Act 1 Scene 1.
09:38- Reads “E.KOLOGY”- Act 1 Scene 2.
11:19- Reads “E.KOLOGY”- Act 1 Scene 3.
12:06 -Reads “E.KOLOGY”- Act 2.
13:54- Reads “E.KOLOGY”- Act 3 Scene 1.
14:24- Reads “E.KOLOGY”- Act 3 Scene 2.
16:04- Reads “E.KOLOGY”- Act 4.
17:30- Reads “E.KOLOGY”- Act 5.
19:44- Introduces “Youth”. [INDEX: theatre, film script, costly to produce; from A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971 (Random House, 1973).]
19:57- Reads “Youth”.
21:36- Introduces “Poem”. [INDEX: short poem; perhaps from The Pleasures of Peace and Other Poems (Grove Press, 1969)]
21:53- Reads “Poem”.
22:11- Introduces “Ma Provence”. [INDEX: interest in writing, English and French sound; from The Pleasures of Peace and Other Poems (Grove Press, 1969).]
22:23- Reads “Ma Provence”.
22:52- Explains “Ma Provence”, introduces “Great Beauty”. [INDEX: translate to english, here he reads in french; from unknown source.]
23:14- Reads “Great Beauty”.
23:31- Introduces “Little Known Historical Fact”. [INDEX: from unknown source]
23:35- Reads “Little Known Historical Fact”.
23:48- Explains “Little Known Historical Fact”, introduces “Getting Back on Land”. [INDEX: Charlemagne, Italian, from unknown source.]
24:06- Reads “Getting Back on Land”.
24:29- Introduces “Prologue”. [INDEX: George Bowering, epic poem “Ko”, written 12-14 years before, 120 pages, ottava rima: stanza Ariosto used in Orlando Furioso, Byron’s Don Juan, rhyme scheme ABABABCC, main character Japanese baseball player, pitcher, ball, grandstand, pitch, characters, happy, living in Florence, villino, town outside the Viale Michelangelo, happy and optimistic poem, continuation, change, life, end lie of “Ko”: “Huddle, meanwhile, was flaking at the knees”, Englishman, mold fever, Rome, killed, statues; from unknown source.]
27:00- Reads “Prologue”.
34:08- Explains “Prologue”, introduces beginning of “Long poem, episode 1”. [INDEX: Pana Grady’s apartment on Central Park West, parties for Upper and Lower Bohemia, uncertainty about publishing “Prologue”; from unknown source.]
34:55- Reads “Long Poem, Episode 1”.
41:07- Introduces “Mexico City”. [INDEX: long poem, improvisational plays, Living Theatre, actors, emotions, passion, nostalgia, self-hatred, anxiety, narcissism, penalty, premiere in Canada; from “Six Inspirational Plays” in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971 (Random House, 1973).]
42:18- Reads “Mexico City”.
43:13.69- END OF RECORDING.
00:00- Kenneth Koch introduces “The Lost Feed”. [INDEX: play; in “Six Improvisational Plays”, from A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971 (Random House, 1973).]
00:03- Reads “The Lost Feed”.
00:59- Introduces “Coil Supreme”. [INDEX: play; in “Six Improvisational Plays”, from A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971 (Random House, 1973.]
01:03- Reads “Coil Supreme”.
01:34- Introduces “The Gold Standard”. [INDEX: improvisational play, production; in “Six Improvisational Plays” from A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971 (Random House, 1973).]
01:43- Reads selection from “The Gold Standard”.
02:41- Introduces “The Pleasures of Peace”. [INDEX: reading started at 9:30, reading last until 11pm, started writing 3 or 4 years ago, peace movement in the United States, Peach Marches on Fifth Avenue, social outcast, fun, poetry readings for peace, college students, poems read like “Lyndon Johnson, you, fuck the pregnant woman who’s lying with her guts streaming out”, peace poems, exploitative, political poem, Vietnam War, positive poem about peace, working hard and long on a poem, suffering, artificial heart, rejected by the body, pleasures of life, literary copout, varied reactions, draft resistance statement, prison, London, review in the Times, made up names, Georgia Finogo; from The Pleasures of Peace and Other Poems (Grove Press, 1969).]
08:01- Reads “The Pleasures of Peace”.
28:09- Introduces “An X-Ray of Utah”. [INDEX: short poem; from the poem “Three Short Poems” in The Pleasures of Peace and Other Poems (Grove Press, 1969).]
28:46- Reads “An X-Ray of Utah”.
28:55- Explains “An X-Ray of Utah” introduces “Tennis”. [INDEX: shortest poem, “Tennis” not in any books.]
29:05- Reads “Tennis”.
29:15- Introduces “Sheep Harbor”. [INDEX: movie script, reads favourites; from “Ten Films” in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971 (Random House, 1973).]
29:30- Reads “Sheep Harbour”. [INDEX: from “Ten Films” in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971 (Random House, 1973).]
29:49- Reads “Oval Gold”. [INDEX: from “Ten Films” in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971 (Random House, 1973).]
30:10- Reads “The Cemetery”. [INDEX: from “Ten Films” in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971 (Random House, 1973).]
30:40- Reads “Sleeping with Women” [INDEX: from The Pleasures of Peace and Other Poems (Grove Press, 1969).]
39:23.67- END OF RECORDING.
Howard Fink List of Poems
“Kenneth Koch”
Introduction by George Bowering
Recorded February 19, 1971.
Content Type:
Sound Recording
Featured:
Yes
Title:
Kenneth Koch Tape Box - Back
Credit:
Drew Bernet
Content Type:
Photograph
Title:
Kenneth Koch Tape Box - Front
Credit:
Drew Bernet
Content Type:
Photograph
Title:
Kenneth Koch Tape Box - Spine
Credit:
Drew Bernet
Content Type:
Photograph
Title:
Kenneth Koch Tape Box - Reel
Credit:
Drew Bernet
Content Type:
Photograph
Dates
Date:
1971 2 19
Type:
Performance Date
Source:
Accompanying Material
Notes:
Date written on sticker on the back of the tape's box and in written announcement "What Goes On!"
LOCATION
Address:
1455, Boul de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Venue:
Hall Building Room H-651
Latitude:
45.4972758
Longitude:
-73.57893043
CONTENT
Contents:
kenneth_koch_i006-11-039.mp3
George Bowering
00:00:00
Most people will have seen, probably, the little promo sheet that went out about Kenneth
talking about all his various books et cetera, so I'll keep this very short. Those that have been involved in reading American poetry over the past few years will naturally know who Kenneth Koch is, that he along with Frank O'Hara
probably invented modern American poetry in New York City
, and it's, and he's also been in the news lately in the various, Slick magazine in the United States
as a teacher of poetry, a very important teacher of poetry to kids in schools. And he's the only man I know who's been able to write what I think is probably an epic in the American language. So I'd like to make this as fast as I can and introduce Mr. Kenneth Koch.
Audience
00:00:58
Applause.
Unknown
00:01:03
[Cut or edit in tape. Unknown amount of time elapsed].
Kenneth Koch
00:01:04
The first poem I'll read is called "Spring".
Kenneth Koch
00:01:08
Reads "Spring" [from Thank You and Other Poems].
Kenneth Koch
00:02:36
The next poem I want to read is called "Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams". I love Williams'
work, and I usually only write parodies of people whose work I like a lot. This parody is based on a poem of Williams, well, actually, on a certain characteristic I saw in Williams' work for a long time which I like, which is sort of, the idea that if you really like something enough and if you want to do it enough, it's okay to do it. And I saw certain insane possibilities of this viewpoint. This is specifically a parody of a poem which goes, "This is just to say I've eaten the plums in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast. Forgive me, they were so cold and so delicious". It's really a nice poem, but it seemed to me there was a little streak of insanity running through it. It's called, "Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams".
Kenneth Koch
00:03:28
Reads "Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams" [from Thank You and Other Poems].
Kenneth Koch
00:04:33
I'd like to read another short poem, this is called "You Were Wearing".
Kenneth Koch
00:04:38
Reads "You Were Wearing" [from Thank You and Other Poems].
Kenneth Koch
00:06:37
I'm trying to find the ideal lights still, it’s--okay, I think that's probably a bit better. The next thing that I want to read is a play called "E.KOLOGY". It's...E.KOLOGY is the name of the hero, it's like capital "E," period, capital "KOLOGY." I'd like to say something about this play. I read it at the University of Chicago
last year, and some students thought that I was making fun of the ecology movement. I'm not, and I would see to it that if it were produced that that was not the case. It just seemed to me that the ecology movement was such a, like a natural cause for pleasure that it wouldn't really do to be totally solemn about it. The, I wrote this to be performed on Earth Day
, in New York last year in April, but they were supposed to have all these things in Union Square
and it just ended up being a lot of light shows and speeches, I think, because they couldn't get the actors together and the lights and the stage and everything. It was done in Philadelphia
, did anyone see it, by any chance? Probably not. I didn't see it. I didn't even know it was done. In any case. E.KOLOGY.
Kenneth Koch
00:07:44
Reads E.KOLOGY - Act One, Scene One [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].
Kenneth Koch
00:09:38
Reads E.KOLOGY - Act One, Scene Two [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].
Kenneth Koch
00:11:19
Reads E.KOLOGY - Act One, Scene Three [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].
Kenneth Koch
00:12:06
Reads E.KOLOGY - Act Two [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].
Kenneth Koch
00:13:54
Reads E.KOLOGY - Act Three, Scene One [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].
Kenneth Koch
00:14:24
Reads E.KOLGOY - Act Three, Scene Two [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].
Kenneth Koch
00:16:04
Reads E.KOLOGY - Act Four [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].
Kenneth Koch
00:17:30
Reads E.KOLOGY - Act Five [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].
Audience
00:19:34
Applause.
Kenneth Koch
00:19:44
While you're in the mood for theatre, I'll read a film script I wrote which I'd be delighted if someone would do. No one's ever done it. Apparently it would cost a great deal to do this, although it's very simple. It's called “Youth”.
Kenneth Koch
00:19:57
Reads "Youth" [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].
Kenneth Koch
00:21:36
I don't hear any takers unless...Let's see. This is a very short poem called, "Poem".
Kenneth Koch
00:21:53
Reads "Poem" [from The Pleasures of Peace and Other Poems].
Kenneth Koch
00:22:11
This, this poem is called "Ma Provence", and my interest in writing it was the different way that French and English sound to me. "Ma Provence".
Kenneth Koch
00:22:23
Reads "Ma Provence" [from The Pleasures of Peace and Other Poems].
Kenneth Koch
00:22:52
I usually translate the French, but I guess here I don't really have to. I'll read a...the French is very banal, it means, "In my Provence the wheat is always green, the girls are pretty, they love me madly, they never die in my Provence". This poem is called "Great Beauty".
Kenneth Koch
00:23:14
Reads "Great Beauty".
Kenneth Koch
00:23:31
This poem is called "Little Known Historical Fact".
Kenneth Koch
00:23:35
Reads "Little Known Historical Fact".
Kenneth Koch
00:23:48
Charlemagne
is an Italian. [Audience laughter]. This is called..."Getting Back on Land".
Kenneth Koch
00:24:06
Reads "Getting Back on Land".
Audience
00:24:22
Laughter.
Kenneth Koch
00:24:29
This, the next thing I want to read is part of a long poem I've been writing in the last year. George
mentioned an epic poem I wrote called “Ko”, which I wrote about, oh twelve or fourteen years ago, and it's a poem...that's “Ko”, there it is, and it's about a hundred and twenty pages, it's in ottava rima, which is a stanza that Ariosto
used in Orlando Furioso
and it's also the stanza that Byron
used in Don Juan
. It rhymes ABABABCC. And...I really like “Ko” a lot. It's a poem about a, the main character is a Japanese baseball player, a pitcher, who throws the ball so hard he knocks the grandstand down with every pitch. And there are a lot of other characters in it. When I wrote the poem I really was very happy, I was living in Florence
, in a villino, and, sort of outside of town on the Viale Michelangelo, and what I tried to do in “Ko” is like to put in every pleasant thing I'd ever experienced in my life, and the poem is kind of happy and optimistic. And I always wanted to continue it, because I liked writing that way. And I never could, because the continuation was always sort of in the style of “Ko” exactly and not as good. It sort of lost that particular feeling. Then I finally was able to start doing it again, recently, but I noticed as I went on writing the poem that it had changed a good deal, that my idea about life and the world was not quite the same, naturally, partly because it changes in me, and partly because it changes in the world, but I don't want to get into metaphysical questions. In any case, the first thing I want to read from this poem is the, like the “Prologue”, which explains my problems in continuing this very happy poem fourteen years afterwards. The only, I think the only thing that needs explaining that I haven't explained is that “Ko” ends with the line, "Huddle, meanwhile, was flaking at the knees." Now Huddle is a, like an Englishman in “Ko” who dies of mold fever in Rome
, and when he dies he turns into a statue which is set up near the Villa Giulia
in Rome. And all of the other characters that have been killed sort of turn into statues and start coming back to life, and this is a sign that Huddle is coming back to life but he's flaking at the knees. In any case, that's referred to at the beginning of the “Prologue”.
Kenneth Koch
00:27:00
Reads "Prologue".
Kenneth Koch
00:34:08
That's the end of the “Prologue”. I want to read the first episode in the poem, now. I realize there was another, perhaps incomprehensible thing in the “Prologue”. Pana Grady...Pana Grady's apartment was a place on...Central Park West
where a lot of parties were held for Upper and Lower Bohemia in the days...well, it was about five or six years ago. Anyway. That's the end of the “Prologue”, which I'm not sure I'm finally going to attach to the poem, since I usually eliminate prologues. And this is the beginning of the poem.
Kenneth Koch
00:34:55
Reads ["Episode I”].
Kenneth Koch
00:41:07
That's the end of the first part. To tell you what happens in this poem would take as long as reading the whole poem, which I don't have time to do. I think I'd like to read some brief, improvisational plays. I wrote these plays to be done at The Living Theatre
, though I knew they wouldn't do them. Somebody asked me to write some improvisational plays, it's really, it's really great, you know, writes it with some actors that want to do it, and I'd, I'd seen some improvisational plays and it seemed to me that the only emotions that actors could improvise were...let's see, passion, nostalgia, self-hatred, anxiety, and then make narcissism and then make topical references, and I decide to really throw sort of a curve at actors and give them something that would really be hard to improvise. My penalty has been that these plays have never been done. The first one I'd like to read...I'd be very glad if they were, could be given a premiere here in Canada
. "Mexico City".
Kenneth Koch
00:42:18
Reads "Mexico City" [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].
Kenneth Koch
00:43:13
The next one is called "The Lost Feed".
Kenneth Koch
00:43:16
Reads "The Lost Feed" [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].
Kenneth Koch
00:44:12
The next play is called "Coil Supreme".
Kenneth Koch
00:44:17
Reads "Coil Supreme" [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].
Kenneth Koch
00:44:48
The last improvisational play I'll read is the one that has always moved me the most at the thought of production. It's called "The Gold Standard".
Kenneth Koch
00:44:57
Reads "The Gold Standard" [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].
Kenneth Koch
00:45:54
I think I'd like to read a rather long poem called...my present plan, which--I don't want to really ruin people's evening, since I didn't start until 9:30, I think the poems that I would like to read will last until 11. So, it's twenty-five after ten now, I don't want to keep anybody up to late or anything. [Audience laughter]. If...Don't feel bad about leaving if you have to go, I want to read these two rather long poems. This is called "The Pleasures of Peace". I should say something about this poem, I wrote it...I started to write it, oh, three years ago, or whenever it was, maybe it was four years ago, but it took me a long time to write it. I guess about three years ago I started. It was at the moment of the, when there really was a lot of happiness in the peace movement in the United States. And it was like the first Peace Marches on Fifth Avenue, and people were jumping up and down for peace, and dancing for peace, and it really seemed as though what people were doing was going to do some good. And I remember feeling very excited in the first set of mass peace activities I was in because, being a poet, and having been brought up in America and everything and like almost all the other poets and artists I knew I sort of felt like a social outcast a little bit. And then I found, in the midst of the peace movement, like there were hundreds of thousands of people who sort of felt the same way about a lot of things, it was nice. And there was something very sort of grand and exciting about the peace movement which does not have anything to do with the issues at all, it was just a lot of fun. In a way it was sort of...it was very pleasant. There were a few other things that motivated this poem. One was I was very annoyed at a lot of my fellow-poets who were going around, giving, in groups to colleges, giving poetry readings for peace. Now there were two things about this that annoyed me, three things. One was that I wasn't doing it. But that, I think, was a minor thing A second thing was that...who did they really think they were trying to convert, like college students who came to poetry readings? I mean, college students who come to poetry readings are not usually in favour of war. And in the second-place, all the poems they read for peace were the sort of things that would make you want to go out and kill people, like "Lyndon Johnson
, you, fuck the pregnant woman who's lying with her guts streaming out," [audience laughter] and they weren't, they didn't really...they didn't really seem like peace poems to me. It...And I felt it was sort of exploitative on their part to do that. So I wanted to write a--I'd never written a political poem and I wanted very much to write a poem, I had very strong feelings about the Vietnam War
, and I wanted to write a poem against the war but which really, was really a poem, a positive poem about peace. I found it terribly hard to do, and I never worked so long on any poem. The fact that I worked so long on it does not mean that it's any better than anything else I ever wrote, but it was just hard, because I kept trying to put in sort of, things about suffering and so on, and they would jump out of the poem the way an artificial heart, I mean the way a transferred heart is sometimes rejected by the body. And I realized I was sort of stuck with writing a poem that was, like, one of my poems, it was really sort of a positive poem about peace. Another problem is that if you write a poem about the pleasures of peace it means you're writing a poem about the pleasures of life. And it's endless, in any case. That's about enough of that for now. It took me over a year to write, it was mainly the last part I couldn't write, since I didn't want to have sort of a literary copout at the end, and I didn't want to sort of end up, oh well, anyway. It's just a poem. The only thing--I got varied reactions to the poem. One...some dopey poet friend of mine came over and said, "Boy, you really put the peace movement down". And I haven't spoken to him very much since then. But then, a better reaction was that I got, some guy called me up and asked me if he could use this poem as his draft resistance statement. And I said you're going to languish in prison for a long time because, you know, judges don't like poetry. But anyway. Now just forget everything I've said [audience laughter] and I'll read this poem. And there's a pause. "The Pleasures of Peace". Oh! Another thing. [Audience laughter]. I read this poem in London
last year, and I got this dopey review in the Times
by, who was it....I'm not sure. And he said, "Kenneth Koch's 'Pleasures of Peace' is a very interesting poem but since he mentions the name of all his friends which we can't be expected to know”--like about 90% of the people in this poem are imaginary. They, they're not my friends. [Audience laughter]. Okay. Like Georgio Finogo is not a real person, okay?. "The Pleasures of Peace".
Kenneth Koch
00:51:15
Reads "The Pleasures of Peace" [from The Pleasures of Peace and Other Poems].
Audience
01:11:09
Applause.
Kenneth Koch
01:11:15
Thank you.
Kenneth Koch
01:11:22
I want to read another poem which will take about seven minutes, but just to rest up I'll read a short poem...I can't find one short enough...Oh, this is called "An X-Ray of Utah".
Kenneth Koch
01:12:00
Reads "An X-Ray of Utah" [from The Pleasures of Peace and Other Poems].
Kenneth Koch
01:12:08
Well that's the shortest poem I ever wrote. [Audience laughter]. Except, there's one that's not in any of my books which is called "Tennis", which is the same length.
Kenneth Koch
01:12:19
Reads "Tennis".
Kenneth Koch
01:12:29
Oh, I think I'll read a few movie scripts. I'll just read a few. This is really for, this is from something called "Ten Films", but I'll just read a few of them, which are my favourites. One of the films is called "Sheep Harbour".
Kenneth Koch
01:12:44
Reads "Sheep Harbour" [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].
Kenneth Koch
01:12:57
Like, the camera could sort of show this for a long time.
Kenneth Koch
01:13:03
Reads "Oval Gold" [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].
Kenneth Koch
01:13:19
I'll just read one more of these films. This is called "The Cemetery".
Kenneth Koch
01:13:24
Reads "The Cemetery" [published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971].
Kenneth Koch
01:13:49
I'll read this one last poem which is called "Sleeping with Women”. "Sleeping with Women".
Kenneth Koch
01:13:54
Reads "Sleeping with Women" [from The Pleasures of Peace and Other Poems].
END
01:22:37
Notes:
Kenneth Koch reads from Thank You and Other Poems (Grove Press, 1962), The Pleasures of Peace and Other Poems (Grove Press, 1969), works published later in A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films, and Other Dramatic Works 1951-1971 (Random House, 1973) and from other unknown sources.
NOTES
Type:
General
Note:
Year-Specific Information:
During this time, Koch published Wishes, Lies and Dreams: Teaching Children to Write Poetry (Chelsea House, 1970) and Rose, Where Did You Get That Red?: Teaching Great Poetry to Children (Random House, 1973), recounting his teaching experiences.
Type:
General
Note:
Local Connections:
Direct connections to Kenneth Koch and Sir George Williams University are unknown, but Koch was an important and influential New York poet and educator.
Type:
Cataloguer
Note:
Original transcript by Rachel Kyne
Original print catalogue, research, introduction and edits by Celyn Harding-Jones
Additional research and edits by Ali Barillaro
Type:
Preservation
Note:
Reel-to-reel tape>2 CDs>digital file
RELATED WORKS
Citation:
Koch, Kenneth. A Change of Hearts: Plays, Films and Other Dramatic Works, 1951-1971. New York: Random House, 1973.
Citation:
Koch, Kenneth. The Pleasures of Peace and Other Poems. New York: Grove Press, Inc, 1969.
Citation:
Koch, Kenneth. Thank You and Other Poems. New York: Grove Press, Inc, 1962.
Citation:
"Koch, Kenneth [Jay]". The Oxford Companion to American Literature. James D. Hart (ed.), Phillip W. Leininger (rev.). Oxford University Press 1995.
Citation:
“What Goes On!”. The Georgian. Montreal: Sir George Williams University, 18 February 1971.
Citation:
“Koch, Kenneth, 1925-”. Literature Online Biography. Cambridge: Chadwyck-Healey, Proquest, 2005.