Book Review: Kenneth Koch's New Addresses

Kenneth Koch in his book titled New Addresses celebrates life. Koch "addresses" a variety of things from orgasms to Jewishness and much more. Kenneth Koch is a poet belonging to the New York School of poets. This collection of poetry is one of many that he has written since he started publishing in the 1950s until his death in 2002. This book was released in 2000; therefore, these poems suggest the final development of his writing style and experiments. Some of these poems contained within this collection have been featured in other publications such as the American Poetry Review, The Paris Review and many others. This paper will try to identify if there is a change and if so to what extent since Koch's days in the New York School of poets. There will also be much emphasis on the style and substance Koch pursues in his collection. The nature of this collection will be discussed as well.

The New York School of Poets emerged in the 1960s. The founding members were John Ashbery, Kenneth Koch, Frank O'Hara, and James Schuyler. All met in Harvard with the exception of James Schuyler. These poets were known for employing surrealism and were heavily influenced by modernists as well as abstract expressionists. The content and message were usually ironic and witty and often without a formula. The Norton Anthology states,

Koch had an eye for incongruous image and generated tension out of the anarchic profusion of such images. He also had an ear for the lyrical possibilities of seemingly unusable material. The effect was often comic, surprising, even childlike

Kenneth Koch's earlier work was laden with comic irony and surprise, but does his later work differ or change? These collections are definitely filled with "incongruous images" and "seemingly unusable material.'

New Addresses definitely captures Kenneth Koch's celebration of life. One can also see why one would write a collection of poetry that exalts and pays tribute to various parts of life because Koch was near his death bed at the time. This collection is a charming tribute to Koch's life. The poems have not lost Koch's irony nor overwhelm one with too much sentimentality. In a sense, Koch was trying to give his last respects to everything that he really loved and admired before he died. He does this by addressing the entities as living beings, or simply personifying. He may actually go beyond treating these subjects as living beings to treating them like good, if not best, friends. This could be further evidence that Koch begins the book with an "Ode to
Yes and ends with an "Ode to Old Age."

The last poem, as stated above, is "To Old Age" by no mistake. Koch, throughout the poems drops hints that he is getting old or facing death. Right before the last poem, Koch has another poem titled "To Breath,"where he begs breath to "stay with me until I can do this [understand certain things and tell them to others]."The end is a crown to Koch's coming to terms with aging. Koch finally reconciles with old age by asking it to "Walk with me, then/Let's not be falling" this fiery morning. Grand age, nous voici! Old age, here we are."

Koch reveals himself in the poem "To Breath," when he asks breath to stay with him until he finishes figuring things out and conveying them to us. His plan is to address everything he can to benefit us by transferring wisdom while he wrestles for his own understanding. One of his wisdoms is definitely the double-edged nature of most things. The irony he is so famous for is exemplified in many of the poems. In the poem "To carelessness," Koch attributes his carelessness to hitting "hornet's nest/And [he] fell down/Screaming." Then Koch also thanks carelessness when "[he] stepped on a booby trap/that was badly wired. You/had been there too/it didn't explode." In the poem "To Life," Koch laments that "Without you there's no suffering and no dancing on the beach" and "You're famous for being horrible, wonderful, irreplaceable." In another poem, "To Kidding Around," he says "Kidding around you are terrible sometimes," then he also adds "You are sometimes breathtaking,/Kidding around!" Yet another poem, "Ode to Competitiveness," resonates with this irony still with Koch chastising competitiveness by saying "Sometimes you are not useful-"then realizing that "However at times I relax into your arms, sure that you'll take care of me."

Koch, at times, is very celebratory and good-humored, but many other times, he is a bit morose and despondent. These simultaneous emotions he expresses fit very nicely with irony of most things having both good and bad properties, often at the same time. Whilst he rejoices the life he has lead, he also looks back with sadness because it is gone. The poem "Ode to My Twenties,"really shows Koch's zeal for life. Koch offers his soul "If [Twenties] ever come back," while he also admits that "[he] is still very impressed by [Twenties]." "This yearning for youth is also seen vividly in "To My Old Addresses." Koch admits that "I am alright but I think I will never find/Sustenance as I found in you, oh old addresses/Numbers that sink into my soul/Forty-eight, nineteen, twenty-three, o worlds in which I was alive!"