Kenneth Koch (27 February 1925 - 6 July 2002) was an American poet, playwright, and professor, active from the 1950s until his death at age 77. He was a prominent poet of the "New York School" of poetry, a loose group of poets including Frank O'Hara and John Ashbery that eschewed contemporary introspective poetry in favor of an exuberant, cosmopolitan style that drew major inspiration from travel, painting, and music.

Life

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Koch was born Jay Kenneth Koch in Cincinnati, Ohio. He began writing poetry at an early age, discovering the work of Shelley and Keats in his teenage years. At the age of 18, he served in WWII as a U.S. Army infantryman in the Philippines. After his service, he attended Harvard University, where he met future New York School cohorts O'Hara and Ashbery. After graduating from Harvard in 1948, and moving to New York City, Koch studied for and received his Ph.D. from Columbia University. In 1951 he met his first wife, Janice Elwood, at UC Berkeley; they married in 1954 and lived in France and Italy for over a year. Their daughter, Katherine, was born in Rome in 1955. In 1959 he joined the faculty in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia, and he taught classes at Columbia for over forty years. His first wife died in 1981; Koch married his second wife, Karen Culler, in 1994. He was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1996. Koch died from a year-long battle with leukemia in 2002.

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Koch, Kenneth - Twitter Search

reading kenneth koch + john berryman tonight.
CBCarey (Christian Carey) Wed, 30 Dec 2009 02:37:46 -0000
reading kenneth koch + john berryman tonight.
RT @ettagirl Social Life, With Friends | Kenneth Koch poem animated in motion typography http://is.gd/5FDWh via @brainpicker #artwalk
melissa_djohnst (Melissa D. Johnston) Wed, 30 Dec 2009 01:11:38 -0000
RT @ettagirl Social Life, With Friends | Kenneth Koch poem animated in motion typography http://is.gd/5FDWh via @brainpicker #artwalk
RT @brainpicker: Social Life, With Friends – a lovely Kenneth Koch poem, animated in motion typography http://is.gd/5FDWh
DavidLeftwich68 (David Leftwich) Tue, 29 Dec 2009 17:28:30 -0000
RT @brainpicker: Social Life, With Friends – a lovely Kenneth Koch poem, animated in motion typography http://is.gd/5FDWh
RT @brainpicker: Social Life, With Friends – a lovely Kenneth Koch poem, animated in motion typography http://is.gd/5FDWh
govizin (Govardhan) Tue, 29 Dec 2009 16:19:52 -0000
RT @brainpicker: Social Life, With Friends – a lovely Kenneth Koch poem, animated in motion typography http://is.gd/5FDWh
Social Life, With Friends | Kenneth Koch poem animated in motion typography http://is.gd/5FDWh via @brainpicker | attn: @melissa_djohnst
ettagirl (henrietta walmark) Tue, 29 Dec 2009 16:14:02 -0000
Social Life, With Friends | Kenneth Koch poem animated in motion typography http://is.gd/5FDWh via @brainpicker | attn: @melissa_djohnst
Social Life, With Friends – a lovely Kenneth Koch poem, animated in motion typography http://is.gd/5FDWh
brainpicker (Maria Popova) Tue, 29 Dec 2009 16:05:35 -0000
Social Life, With Friends – a lovely Kenneth Koch poem, animated in motion typography http://is.gd/5FDWh

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