Kenneth Koch

Kenneth Koch (1925–2002) was considered part of the New York school of poetry, a group of poets that included Frank O’Hara and that moved away from the introspective poetry of the early twentieth century. Koch graduated from Harvard and taught at Columbia University for over forty years. In addition to The Art of Love: Poems (1975), On the Great Atlantic Railway: Selected Poems 1950–1988 (1994), and One Train (1994), for which he won the Bollingen Prize, Koch is also well-known for Wishes, Lies and Dreams: Teaching Children to Write Poetry (1970).

Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams

This poem first appeared in Koch’s 1962 collection Thank You and Other Poems. When an interviewer asked about the playfulness of his work, Koch responded, “I don’t intend for my poetry to be mainly funny or satiric, but it seems to me that high spirits and sort of a comic view are part of being serious.”

1

I chopped down the house that you had been saving to live in next

summer.

I am sorry, but it was morning, and I had nothing to do

and its wooden beams were so inviting.

2

We laughed at the hollyhocks together

5

and then I sprayed them with lye.

Forgive me. I simply do not know what I am doing.

3

I gave away the money that you had been saving to live on for the

next ten years.

The man who asked for it was shabby

and the firm March wind on the porch was so juicy and cold.

4

10

Last evening we went dancing and I broke your leg.

Forgive me. I was clumsy, and

I wanted you here in the wards, where I am the doctor!

(1962)