Kenneth Koch

Kenneth Koch (27 February 1925 - 6 July 2002) was an American poet, playwright, and professor, active from the 1950s until his death at age 77. He was a prominent poet of the "New York School" of poetry, a loose group of poets including Frank O'Hara and John Ashbery that eschewed contemporary introspective poetry in favor of an exuberant, cosmopolitan style that drew major inspiration from travel, painting, and music.

Biography

Koch was born Jay Kenneth Koch in Cincinnati, Ohio. He began writing poetry at an early age, discovering the work of Shelley and Keats in his teenage years. At the age of 18, he served in WWII as a U.S. Army infantryman in the Philippines. After his service, he attended Harvard University, where he met future New York School cohorts O'Hara and Ashbery. After graduating from Harvard in 1948, and moving to New York City, Koch studied for and received his Ph.D. from Columbia University. During the 1950s, he met his first wife Janice, who traveled Europe with Koch during his Fulbright fellowship. Their daughter, Katherine, was born in 1956. In 1959, he joined the faculty in the Department of English at Columbia, and he taught classes at Columbia for over forty years. His first wife died in 1981, and Koch married his second wife, Karen, in 1994. He was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1996. Koch died from a year-long battle with leukemia in 2002.

Related Topics:
Cincinnati, Ohio - Shelley - Keats - WWII - U.S. Army - Infantry - Philippines - Harvard University - New York City - Ph.D. - Columbia University - Fulbright - American Academy of Arts and Letters - Leukemia

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~