On the Great Atlantic Rainway: Selected Poems 1950-1988 - Softcover

Koch, Kenneth

4.26

53 ratings by Goodreads

9780679765820: On the Great Atlantic Rainway: Selected Poems 1950-1988

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0679765824 ISBN 13: 9780679765820

Publisher: Knopf, 1996

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On the Great Atlantic Railway is Kenneth's Koch's inspired collection of 32 years of work. Koch, David Lehman said in The American Poetry Review, is "a masterly innovator . . . who has used his extravagant powers of wit and invention to enlarge the sphere of the poetic . . . he has stretched our ideas of what it is possible to do in poetry."

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Review:

Act Ii, Scene 3
Act Iii, Scene 8
Alive For An Instant
The Art Of Poetry
The Artist
An Atmosphere Of Heavy, Intense (summer) Stillness
Aus Einer Kindheit
Bertha
The Boiling Water
The Brassiere Factory
The Bricks
The Burning Mystery Of Anna In 1951
The Circus
The Circus (ii)
Collected Poems
Collecting Coat-hangers
The Congo And Zaire. River
Days And Nights
The Departure From Hydra
Desire For Spring
Down At The Docks
En L'an Trentiesme De Mon Eage
Equal To You
Farm's Thoughts
The Four Atlantics
Fresh Air
From 1
From 4
Geography
Girl And Baby Florist Sidewalk Pram Nineteen Seventy ...
The Green Step
Guinevere Or The Death Of The Kangaroo
Hearing
In Bed
In Love With You
Lunch
Ma Provence
The Magic Of Numbers
Mary Magdalene's Song
Not Feeling Ready
On The Edge
On The Great Atlantic Rainway
One Night In Venice, Near The Grand Canal
Our Hearts
Pericles
Permanently
The Pleasures Of Peace
Poem
Pregnancy
The Railway Stationery
Seasons On Earth
Sleeping With Women
Some General Instructions
Spices
Spring
Summery Weather
Sun Out
Thank You
To Marina
To You
The Tomb Of Alexander
University Of Japan
Variations On A Theme By William Carlos Williams
West Wind
Where Am I Kenneth?
With Janice
Wittgenstein, Or Bravo, Dr. Wittgenstein!
You Were Wearing
Your Fun Is A Snob
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder�

From Publishers Weekly:

This selection of poems by Koch (Seasons on Earth) is a thoroughly enjoyable assortment of work (including a few unpublished poems from the '50s). Koch's imagination is at once philosophical and fiercely whimsical; his digressions are always clever. Lines from "Fresh Air" capture the frustrations felt by his generation of writers in the '50s and '60s: "Where are young poets in America, they are trembling in publishing houses and universities,/ Above all they are/ trembling in universities, they are bathing the library steps with their spit/ They are gargling out innocuous (to whom?) poems about maple trees and their children... Oh what worms they are! They wish to perfect their form." Also featured are excerpts from longer poetical works, most notably "The Art of Poetry," detailing 10 rules to be observed before a poet "releases" a poem into "the purview of others" (the seventh: "Is there any unwanted awkwardness, cheap effects... or other literary, 'kiss-me-I'm-poetic' junk?"). At times, one could read Koch's playfulness as a "cheap effect," yet that would be unfair. For another Koch poetic directive is to be "young in one's heart." Whether writing with virtuoso skill in ottava rima, blank verse or free verse, Koch practices what he preaches.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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