Quotes from Kenneth Koch

Picasso said once when being interviewed that one should not be one's own connoisseur.

As for political poetry, as it's usually defined, it seems there's very little good political poetry.

I never thought of myself as a New York poet or as an American poet.

I love painting and music, of course. I don't know nearly as much about them as I know about poetry. I've certainly been influenced by fiction. I was overwhelmed by War and Peace when I read it, and I didn't read it until I was in my late 20s.

I was excited by what my painter friends were doing, and they seemed to be interested in our poetry too, and that was a wonderful little, fizzy sort of world.

Maybe there are three or four really good poets in a generation.

Certainly, it seems true enough that there's a good deal of irony in the world... I mean, if you live in a world full of politicians and advertising, there's obviously a lot of deception.

It seems everything is so full of possibilities one can hardly take it all in.

You have enchanted me with a single kiss Which can never be undone Until the destruction of language

I wasn't ready For you. I understood nothing Seemingly except my feelings You were whirling In your life I was keeping Everything in my head To Marina

Do not be defeated by the Feeling that there is too much for you to know. That is a myth of the oppressor. You are Capable of understanding life. And it is yours alone. And only this time.

I thought, 'There are a lot of poets who have the courage to look into the abyss, but there are very few who have the courage to look happiness in the face and write about it,' which is what I wanted to be able to do.

AESTHETICS OF INTEGRITY For every star in the sky Someone is holding his ground.

I love you as a sheriff searches for a walnut / That will solve a murder case unsolved for years / Because the murderer left it in the snow beside a window / Through which he saw her head, connecting with / Her shoulders by a neck, and laid a red /Roof in her heart. For this we lived a thousand years; / For this we love, and we live because we love, we are not /Inside a bottle, thank goodness! ----- from To You

Maybe poetry took the life out of both of them, Idea and friendship.

Lies belong in poems

I probably misunderstand misunderstanding itself

I was excited by what my painter friends were doing, and they seemed to be interested in our poetry too, and that was a wonderful little, fizzy sort of world.

AESTHETICS OF THE AESTHETICIAN What is the aesthetician But a mule hitched to the times?

I don't know where you'd find such a magazine. ~ on the stipulations set by a benefactor to the Harvard Advocate that the staff contain no Jews, homosexuals, or drunks

When you finish a poem, it clicks shut like the top of a jewel box, but prose is endless. I haven't experienced an awful lot of clicking shut!

Poetry, which is written while no one is looking, is meant to be looked at for all time.

Write poetry as if you were in love. If you are always in love you will not always write the same poem, but if you are never in love, you may. - from My Olivetti Speaks

A basso sings, and a soprano answers him. Then there is thunder in a clear blue sky, And, from the earth, a sigh: "This song is finished.