Kenneth Koch

---

The Collected Poem of Kenneth Koch

_____________

Reading at the Kelly Writers House, University of Pennsylvania,

April 15, 1998

Songs From Plays


1. This Dancing Man was Once the Pope (0:32) from Easter in the Vatican
2. When I was a Young Woman (0:36) from Easter in the Vatican
3. Your Genius Made Me Shiver (0:55)
4. Driving Along (0:21) from New Faces of Forty Years Past
5. They Say Prince Hamlet (1:02) from Shakespeare Amended
6. Songs Are about Death (0:17) from The Unicorn
7. Allegheny Menaces (0:38) from New Times, New World
8. Let's Pour a Coca-Cola on the Priest (0:25) from Don Juan of Quixote
9. You Want a Social Life with Friends (1:28) from Brothers and Friends
10. What Makes this Statue Noble Seeming (0:39) from Two Worlds
11. from My Olivetti Speaks (10:14)
12. Some plays from One Thousand Avant-Garde Plays (18:50)
13. One Train (5:57)

_________

From ON AESTHETICS

AESTHETICS OF BEING A SAILBOAT

Go this way and that
Have a reflection
Be upside down


AESTHETICS OF PLATO

There has to be something better
Than what we see.  Otherwise, we'd see it.


AESTHETICS OF SURREALISM

To find the impossible
With breasts.


AESTHETICS OF CERTAIN THINGS

Certain people for certain things.
Certain women for certain things.
Certain men for certain things.
Certain occasions for certain things.
Certain lives for certain things.


AESTHETICS OF SILENCE

Silence is not everything.
It is half of everything
Like a house.


AESTHETICS OF THE MAIN PART OF LIFE

The late early and the entire middle
Are the main part of life.  Be as kind
As you can in this part, and get done
What it seems to you has to be done.
If you find time for it, have a good time.


AESTHETICS OF BEING GLORIOUS

To be glorious, take off your wings
Before you fly.


AESTHETICS OF STONE

The gods take stone
And turn it into men and women;
Men and women take gods
And turn them into stone.

___

...

An Interview With Kenneth Koch by David Kennedy Recorded in Huddersfield, England, Thursday 5th August 1993...

_______