New Addresses: Poems

by Kenneth Koch

Kenneth Koch, who has already considerably "stretched our ideas of what it is possible to do in poetry" (David Lehman), here takes on the classic poetic device of apostrophe, or direct address. His use of it gives him yet another chance to say things never said before in prose or in verse and, as well, to bring new life to a form in which Donne talked to Death, Shelley to the West Wind, Whitman to the Earth, Pound to his Songs, O'Hara to the Sun at Fire Island.  

Koch, in this new book, talks to things important in his life -- to Breath, to World War Two, to Orgasms, to the French Language, to Jewishness, to Psychoanalysis, to Sleep, to his Heart, to Friendship, to High Spirits, to his Twenties, to the Unknown. He makes of all these "new addresses" an exhilarating autobiography of a most surprising and unforeseeable kind.

Genres: Poetry

96 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Kenneth Koch is most often recognized as one of the four most prominent poets of the 1950s-1960s poetic movement "the New York School of Poetry" along with Frank O'Hara, John Ashbery and James Schuyler. The New York School adopted the avant-garde movement in a style often called the "new" avant-garde, drawing on Abstract Expressionism, French surrealism and stream-of-consciousness writing in the attempt to create a fresh genre free from cliché. In his anthology The New York Poets, Mark Ford writes, "In their reaction against the serious, ironic, ostentatiously well-made lyric that dominated the post-war poetry scene, they turned to the work of an eclectic range of literary iconoclasts, eccentrics and experimenters."

Fiercely anti-academic and anti-establishment, Koch's attitude and aesthetic were dubbed by John Ashbery his "missionary zeal." Ford calls him "the New York School poet most ready to engage in polemic with the poetic establishment, and the one most determined to promote the work of himself and his friends to a wider audience." Koch died of leukemia at age 77, leaving a legacy of numerous anthologies of both short and long poems, avant-garde plays and short stories, in addition to nonfiction works dealing with aesthetics and teaching poetry to children and senior citizens.

Reviews

[Gabriel Congdon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ohhhh shhhiiiittttt,

Truth be told I checked this book out confusing John Koethe with Kenneth Koch. That could happen to anyone. And uh, I think they’re fine poems. I got problems, sure, and my grievances are below. But they’re insignificant. Poetry is a case by case affair. If sparks don’t ignite than the poems and the reader go their own way, no love loss. This is why I give everything 5 stars, it’s just easier. I don’t fault poems for my not connecting with them.

Unless you’re Boethius, whom I gave one of my devastating 4 start ratings (I was in a mood I was). Well the Muse of Philosophy appeared to me last night and gave me shit.

MUSE OF PHILOSOPHY: What are you doing with the Muse of Poetry skank? (She was talking about Koch) Not only does poetry afford no remedies to relieve his pains, but their succulent poisons intensify them. They do not expel the diseases from men’s minds but merely inure them to its presence.

ME: Damn, Philosophy. Sheesh, I wasn’t going to mention what a bad mood you seemed to be in having to bow down to the new cosmic king in town-–God--but I guess I’ll do so now.

The Muse of Philosophy has a point. I think it’s time we address it.

As you get older, not every poem is going to change your life. That’s ok. (lives need time to settle before being re-shook) if one brings concentration to poetry, life afterward can have a the same livid quality. What Paul Valery calls “stains of the pure instant”. If the novel is about getting lost, poetry is about getting concentrated.

Anyway, I’m distracted. Koch, my beef with him.

My beef is this: these poems thematically are all To’s. “To This,” and “To That.” So the pronoun you gets a lot of action here. In fact, a lot of what makes poetry difficult to write, I imagine, can be bypassed with a useful motif like you. (it’s what make beat poetry tedious, an over usage of “it was” or, even worse, “like.”) But that’s it.

See? I might as well grab a handful of sand and count grains. That’s what I use to do, before I got into this poetry reviewing racket I’m neck deep in. Sometimes, ya know, when the work is overwhelming, you think about going out and counting sand. I do anyway.

Next time on Gabe’s Poetry Review:

“That Phillip Lopate is a horses’ ass!”

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this, but the charm of it is completely beyond me. Nice idea, but I found the poems for the most part dull. One of those books where I was sure the author was having a great time, but I was left off-wavelength.

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 3 out of 5]

You led me to sling my rifle
Over my shoulder when its bayonet was fixed
On Leyte, in the jungle. It hit a hornets' nest
And I fell down
Screaming. The hornets attacked me, and Lonnie,
The corporal, said "Soldier get off your ass!"
Later the same day, I stepped on a booby trap
That was badly wired. You
Had been there too.
Thank you. It didn't explode.

- To Carelessness, pg. 11

* * *

We didn't pay much attention to you at the barn,
Though without you we would probably have been caught.

- To Consciousness, pg. 30

* * *

At dusk light you come to bat
As Georg Trakl might put it. How are you doing
Aside from that, aside from the fact
That you are at bat? What balls are you going to hit
Into the outfield, what runs will you score,
And do you think you ever will, eventually,
Bat one out of the park? That would be a thrill
To you and your contemporaries! Your mighty posture
Takes its stand in my chest and swing swing swing
Your warm up, then you take a great step
Forward as the ball comes smashing toward you, home
Plate. And suddenly it is evening.

- To My Heart at the Close of Day, pg. 58

* * *

You have taken the vodka
That I was probably
Saving for tomorrow.
Go on and take it
For there's more enterprise
In waking naked.

- To High Spirits, pg. 62

* * *

You have helped hold me together.
I'd like you to be still.
Stop talking or doing anything else for a minute.
No. Please. For three minutes, maybe five minutes.
Tell me which walk to take over the hill.
Is there a bridge there? Will I want company?
Tell me about the old people who built the bridge.
What is "the Japanese economy"?
Where did you hide the doctor's bills?
How much I admire you!
Can you help me to take this off?
May I help you to take that off?
Are you finished with this item?
Who is the car salesman?
The canopy we had made for the dog.
I need some endless embracing.
The ocean's not really very far.
Did you come west in this weather?
I've been sitting at home with my shoes off.
You're wearing a cross!
That bench, look! Under it are some puppies!
Could I have just one little shot of Scotch?
I suppose I wanted to impress you.
It's snowing.
The Revlon Man has come from across the sea.
This racket is annoying.
We didn't want the baby to come here because of the hawk.
What are you reading?
In what style would you like the humidity to explain?
I care, but not much. You can smoke a cigar.
Genuineness isn't a word I'd ever use.
Say, what a short skirt! Do you have a camera?
The moon is a shellfish.
I can't talk to most people. They eat me alive.
Who are you, anyway?
I want to look at you all day long, because you are mine.
Might you crave a little visit to the Pizza Hut?
Thank you for telling me your sign.
I'm filled with joy by this sun!
The turtle is advancing but the lobster stays behind. Silence has won the game!
Well, just damn you and the thermometer!
I don't want to ask the doctor.
I didn't know what you meant when you said that to me.
It's getting cold, but I am feeling awfully lazy.
If you want to we can go over there
Where there's a little more light.

- To Various Persons Talked To All at Once, pg. 70-71

[Cody Stetzel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really love the concept. Thought the poems were evocative and inventive, took me to places I wanted to go and provided me with plenty of room for maneuvering.

[Marisa Januzzi · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book of color, wisdom, and humor... more directly autobiographical than any of his earlier poetry collections

[Evan · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you’re the person who stole this from me, I hope you got something out of it. A great book of poems, and glad to be introduced to Kenneth Koch!

[Aimee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another used bookstore find. I expected some quirky, accessible, and entertaining poems. What I found were poems that are just that, but that also inspire quite a bit of reflection. These are nearly all odes to abstractions, to many of those aspects integral to our existence, and yet rarely is their role in the motley cast of our lives contemplated. Through Koch's imagination, decades of his life, certain languages, Jewishness, orgasm, you name it, all become personified subjects of direct address in this existential collection.

Some of my favorite poems in New Addresses are the ones where a cluster of characters are spoken to all at once. These seemingly arbitrary combinations of addressee end up making perfect sense; they represent the aspects of the self working together to form the self's uniqueness, its conflicting identities and aspirations.

Here are the first few lines of 'To Jewishness, Paris, Ambition, Trees, My Heart and Destiny':

Now that you have all gathered here to talk with me,
Let's bring everything out into the open.
It's almost too exciting to have all of you here--
One of you physically and another spiritually inside me,
Another worn into me by my upbringing, another a quality
I picked up someplace west of here, and two of you at least fixed things outside me,
Paris and trees. Who would like to ask the first question?

And the final line of 'To Walking, The French Language, Testosterone, Politics and Duration':

All of you found me clumsy, except you, who found me brief.


Koch uses allusions to famous works of poetry and to poetry itself at certain points throughout as well. In 'To Sleep,' its function of helping to bring about poetry lends a more complex significance to sleep's role in the life of a poet looking back. "Were you always that goblet from which a few inspired ones/ Drank that liqueur that offered them their sublimest poems?" he asks. And, in the end, "[...]I think with gratitude/ Of what we together still might do." The strange syntax of that final line shifts the focus to modals at the end; contemplating sleep's power provides hope and excitement for future possibilities, future messages from the muse.

These poems give thanks for life's experiences, they catalog some of its disappointments, and, most intriguingly, through their playfulness, they blur the lines between the self, societal influence, biology, and the inevitable effects of time. What if all of these elements are simply a cast of characters that have influenced the otherwise empty vessel of the self? this collection implicitly asks. The answer: whatever the truth is, life has been (and will continue to be) a delightful ride.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have had this book of poems near and dear to my heart—reading them off and on—for several years. And I don’t normally read whole books of poems; I often stumble across great poems as mushroom hunter stumbles across precious morels: I’m delighted, for I have been looking for them, but I did not truly expect to find them. In any case, I often went back to this book of poems without searching elsewhere for greatness.

This collection, titled New Addresses, is a series of poems that address different things of importance in Koch’s—or the speaker’s—life: the Italian language, old age, friendship, orgasms, stammering, marijuana, Jewishness. Koch’s best poems are the ones where he is able address an abstract concept and make it concrete. To me, the stand-outs are “To My Twenties” and “To My Heart as I Go Along.” The end of “To My Twenties” is lovely: “Twenties, my soul/Is yours for the asking/You know that, if you ever come back.” I am sure I have often quoted the lovely and beautiful “To My Heart as I Go Along,” which manages to be universal though the speaker may be a man—and yet not clichéd, though it speaks of the heart: “What do you think, heart? I do notice you beating like anything!”

The only poems that fall short are the ones where the speaker addresses more than one thing, as he does at least twice. In these poems, it is hard to keep up with who the speaker is addressing, especially line by line. But these poems don’t manage to drag the collection as a whole down, and even they have moments of beauty.

I think and I hope that this book is around for a long time (though it currently looks to be out of print). These poems are beautiful and sincere, and I am the better for having read them. Kenneth Koch has done something truly special with these poems.

[Eirin · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the more wonderful books of prose poetry I have read. Koch's style of address is both beautiful and different. I liked how he used the second person so much, in addressing the subjects that were in the titles of the poems. It's an unusual and difficult mode of expression to pull off successfully. Koch manages it.

The only poem I actually did not like was "To Jewishness, Paris, Ambition, Trees, My Heart, and Destiny". In keeping with his own style, the poem ended up being much too over the top, with too many things happening at once. I had to really struggle to keep up with the poem, and would have preferred it if he had cut down on the adressees. However, I liked the parts that were to trees and Paris, they were wonderful.

Some of my favourites must have been "To Stammering", "To World War Two", "To My Heart As I Go Along" and "To Breath". There were more of course, but those really stuck with me. Some of them made me laugh, some of them made me cry. Some both.

An absolute delight to read, all in all.

[Regulator · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kenneth Koch's "New Addresses" is a collection of poems with the feel of a memoir. Reminiscent of Neruda's "Odes to Common Things" each poem addresses a new abstraction - Stammering, Jewishness, The Unknown – as he navigates his life from childhood piano lessons to his experiences as a soldier during World War II to the birth of his child. While ode upon ode may seem rote, Koch uses this strategy in continually unexpected ways - the poem "To Testosterone" begins "You took me to the Spanish Steps/ Then we walked up to the top of them and looked down...but there was nothing doing." There is a subtle humor in addressing your own sleeping testosterone, but even quite unexpectedly so, sitting among Italian architecture. It is that light touch of humor, the frankness of the voice, and the emotionally resonant experiences that make the book so enjoyable, simultaneously light of heart with a heavy punch.


– Recommended by Jaimee Hills

[Rob · Rating 3 out of 5]

I particularly enjoyed enjoyed "To World War Two" and "To My Twenties."

This is a collection of apostrophe poems, poems in which the persona of the poem addresses an absent person or idea. The style is particularly effective for reflection, and Koch does not disappoint. His addresses are humorous at times, but also nostalgic. Good stuff.

It may be too early for me to get nostalgic, but I nevertheless share Koch's sentiments in the closing lines of "To My Twenties":

Twenties, my soul
Is yours for the asking
You know that, if you ever come back.

I think my thirties will be good too, though. I will have to live through them before I get too nostalgic for my twenties, i guess...

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although I really loved this book, reading it all at once can cause all the poems to wash together since they're all written not only in the same mode, if you will, but also in virtually the same tone: witty, associative, wistful. I'd recommend this collection to anyone, with the suggestion to take the poems one at a time. Start with "To Life," "To My Twenties," "To World War II," then find others at your leisure. Some of them made me laugh, which is a high compliment as far as my poetic priorities are concerned.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this was the first book of poems I ever bought, and I guess it kind of unlocked a love of poetry I didn't know I had. The format of New Addresses is completely delightful: each poem is written to something, like "To My Heart," "To Orgasms," "To Piano Lessons." They range from the whimsical to the profound, often within one poem. Koch is often funny and always penetratingly wise. This is easily one of my top five books ever.

[Lola Carter · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just read this for a class.
As a Whole poetry hasn’t been my forte, however the authors personal addresses to certain times, things, aspects, etc; in his life made this book beautiful.

He wrote this while battling cancer and never knew when his date would end. He was able to finish writing this book before he passed, so I read this tenderly and with care. And because he wanted this to be read I wanted (as the reader) to grant that wish and read it.

I’m very glad I did.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't like this book when I started reading it but a few poems in he really does some surprising things with language. And he is such a joyful poet, which is strange to me. I usually like the dark stuff, but I am so glad my prof assigned this to me!

[Erik · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some real gems, but also a few that didn't seem to be doing much. Perhaps the repeated theme of "the address," often to concepts rather than tangible addressees, simply makes this a book to tackle in smaller bites.

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

refreshingly postmodern

[Russ · Rating 4 out of 5]

he addresses many things and people and problems and the past and the present
just a wonderful book. I will miss his work.

[Antoine McGrath · Rating 5 out of 5]

Many things are more, important
than good grammar like the time we,
gave life to a poem

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book and when I'm done I reread it.

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

To My Twenties is a spectacular poem

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Funny, clever, inventive, and often quite moving. Makes you pause and ponder your own life. I really loved this collection.