Nation Topics - Kenneth Koch | The Nation

Nothing is simple in the poems of James Schuyler, not even the formal austerity of looking out a window.

The Zen reflections in Philip Whalen's poetry have been collected in one beautiful book.

Drawing from the New York counterculture in which he immersed himself, Ted
Berrigan's sonnets and other poems sing beautifully about being broken
and graceful and tough.

Kenneth Koch was one of the merrier in the bunch known as the New York
School of poets. But he was more than just a poet of humor. He
sought the essential nature of human existence, and displayed his
infectious awe of the universe in enchanting verse.

In 1958 John Ashbery sailed for Paris to gather materials for a thesis he intended to write about Raymond Roussel, who at the time was an all-but-forgotten French poet, playwright and novelist.

"That was a benefit shooting." So said a shaken Kenneth Koch to a
stunned audience seconds after a tall, scraggly man fired a pistol at
him on January 10, 1968.