On the Edge: Collected Long Poems - Hardcover

Koch, Kenneth

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9780307262844: On the Edge: Collected Long Poems

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0307262847 ISBN 13: 9780307262844

Publisher: Knopf, 2007

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On the Edge is a collection of the six longer masterpieces by one of the most beloved and accomplished poets of our time.

Full of exclamation and exaggeration but also graced with dry wit and comic sophistication, these poems contain some of Kenneth Koch’s most original work. When the Sun Tries to Go On is a young man’s radical song of himself and his freshly discovered and expanding universe. Ko, or A Season on Earth is an epic invention filled with such memorably powerful characters as a rookie baseball star whose pitches knock down grandstands, and Joseph Dah, whose poems transform him into whatever he writes about. In The Duplications Koch’s inventions expand into Ovidian twists as Commander Papend builds a life-sized replica of Venice in Peru and a chemist discovers a way to make young women out of the soil of Finland. In the elegiac Seasons on Earth and in two meditative autobiographical sequences, Impressions of Africa and On the Edge, Koch’s protean expressions of emotion make obvious his genius for evoking the mystery and excitement of the fact of existence and the passage of time.

Distinctly and irrepressibly Koch throughout, these works heighten our appreciation of his achievement. On the Edge is the perfect companion volume to the critically acclaimed Collected Poems of Kenneth Koch, about which John Ashbery, in Publishers Weekly, said, “The products of a lifetime are on display in this awe-inspiring banquet of a book.”

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About the Author:

Kenneth Koch published many volumes of poetry, now gathered in The Collected Poems of Kenneth Koch and On the Edge. His plays are collected in The Gold Standard: A Book of Plays and One Thousand Avant-Garde Plays, and his fiction was brought together in Collected Fiction. He also wrote several books about poetry, including Wishes, Lies, and Dreams; Rose, Where Did You Get That Red?; and Making Your Own Days: The Pleasures of Reading and Writing Poetry. Koch was the winner of the Bollingen Prize (1995) and the Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry (1996), a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize (1995) and the National Book Award (2000), and winner of the first annual Phi Beta Kappa Poetry Award (2001). He was named Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government in 1999. Kenneth Koch lived in New York City, where he taught at Columbia University.

On the Edge is a collection of six long narrative poems by Kenneth Koch. Here are excerpts from three of them.Ko, Or a Season on EarthMeanwhile at the University of JapanKo had already begun his studies, whichWhile making him an educated manWould also give him as he learned to pitchAnd catch—for Ko was more than a mere fan,But wished as a playing member to do a hitchWith some great team—something to think aboutMore interesting than merely Safe and Out.Inyaga, his professor, when he firstAppeared to Ko, seemed fashioned like an ape,Protruding jaw and tiny eyes that burstFrom high cheekbones of chimpanzee shape,But later it was his teaching that Ko cursed,Of which the body merely was the drape:Inyaga taught him baseball was a sin.Ko cried out! Inyaga; "Stop that dinAt once, or else you'll suffer!" Ko subsides,But his resentment every day gets greater.Meanwhile the Dodgers all had taken bridesAs was arranged for them by Mr. Slater,Their crafty manager, who thus providesA human interest for the fans, who, later,When they find out his trick, will make him pay;But for the moment it is Slater's day.Impressions of AfricaIn the great, bracing air of KenyaThe lion runs. Seeing a lionAnd two lionesses together,The Italian woman said,"� il leone,La sua moglie, e la sua madre"—Id est, the wife's mother,A sort of chaperoneTo the lion and to his wife.The lion's musclesAre amazing. The airIs filled with lions' grace.Viewed without anyHuman component around,The lion is sensationalSimply of and in himself.Seasons on EarthIn spite of the real suffering around me,And poverty, and spite, I had the senseThat there was something else. Each midday found meEcstatically in the present tense,Writing. And you would have eto come and pound meQuite hard to drag me from my innocence.That sense that now seems almost unbelievable—I love it, loved it—is it irretrievable?

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