Kenneth Koch Quotes

6 Sourced Quotes

Total absorption in poetry is one of the finest things in existence— It should not make you feel guilty. Everyone is absorbed in something. The sailor is absorbed in the sea. Poetry is the mediation of life.

Kenneth Koch

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

Kenneth Koch

Summer in the trees! It is time to strangle several bad poets.

Kenneth Koch

One day the Nouns were clustered in the street.
An Adjective walked by, with her dark beauty.
The Nouns were struck, moved, changed.
The next day a Verb drove up, and created the Sentence.

Kenneth Koch

This rose became a bandanna, which became a house, which became infused with all passion, which became a hideaway, which became yes I would like to have dinner, which became hands, which became lands, shores, beaches, natives on the stones, staring and wild beasts in the trees, chasing the hats of lost hunters, and all this deserves a tone.

Kenneth Koch

One trouble with a kind of falsely therapeutic and always reassuring attitude that it is easy to fall into with old people, is the tendency to be satisfied with too little.

Kenneth Koch

Kenneth Koch

Kenneth Koch

Born: February 27, 1925

Died: July 6, 2002 (aged 77)

Bio: Kenneth Koch was an American poet, playwright, and professor, active from the 1950s until his death at age 77.

Known for:

Wishes, Lies and Dreams (1970)
New Addresses: Poems (2000)
Rose, where did you get that red? (1973)
Making your own days (1998)
One Train (1994)

Kenneth Koch on Wikipedia

Suggest an edit or a new quote

Kenneth Koch Quotes

Quotes about Kenneth Koch

American Playwright Quotes

Playwright Quotes

20th-century Playwright Quotes