Making Your Own Days: The Pleasures of Reading and Writing Poetry FROM THE PUBLISHER
This book makes the somewhat mysterious subject of poetry clear for those who read it and for those who write it and for those who would like to read it and write it better. Koch accomplishes this revelation of poetry by presenting the idea that poetry is a separate language, a language in which music and sound are as important as syntax or meaning. Thus he is able to clarify the many aspects of poetry: the nature of poetic inspiration, what happens when a poet is writing a poem, revision, and what actually goes on while one is reading a poem - how confusion or only partial understanding eventually leads to truly experiencing a poem. Among the poets whose work is included are Homer, Ovid, Sappho, Shakespeare, Byron, Dickinson, Baudelaire, Li Bei, Stevens, Williams, Lorea, Ashbery, and Snyder.
FROM THE CRITICS
Library Journal
Koch, a preeminent American poet and author of two best-selling books on teaching poetry to children, has at last produced a guide for adults. This book is divided into two parts: a series of essays on subjects such as meter, rhyme, and personification and an anthology of favorite poems. Most remarkably, non-English poems often appear with several translations, underscoring the flexibility of poetic language. Making Your Own Days will be most useful to writers already familiar with the basics. However, while some of the playfulness that marked Wishes, Lies and Dreams (HarperCollins, 1980) and Rose, Where Did You Get That Red? (Vintage, 1990) creeps in, the overall tone is that of a lecturer, and Koch covers the same ground as Kim Addonizio and Dorianne Laux's The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry (LJ 10/15/97), though in a less engaging manner.--David Kirby, Florida State Univ., Tallahassee
Booknews
A handbook for readers and writers of poetry, with an anthology of famous works thrown into the bargain. The author, award- winning poet Kenneth Koch, looks at the mechanics of poetry such as rhythm, rhyme, line division, meter, and poetic forms. He also explores the unique language of poetry, inspiration, revision, and how confusion or partial understanding can lead to a true experience of a poem. The anthologized poems are each accompanied by an explanatory note, and include work by Homer, Shakespeare, Li Bai, Mayakowsky, and e.e. cummings. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.
David Lehman
"[Koch] revolutionized the teching of poetry to children and then did the same with elderly nursing home residents. His teaching is continuous with his own poetry, and indeed springs directly from it. A poet of the highest originality...he has stretched our ideas of what it is possible to do in poetry." -- American Poetry Review
WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING
"I would recommend Koch's way of teaching poetry above all others. His book is informative, witty, and surprising. It's also authoriative. I hope it has the great success it deserves; it is a precious defense of poetry." — Frank Kermode
"A person in love is torn between needing to keep his enthusiasm secret and wanting to share it with the world. Kenneth Koch in his new book strikes the ideal compromise. How generous he is with his patient intelligence, and how original with his crucial perception! LIke all real artists, he shows us what we did not know we knew. He is that rare phenomenon, the poet who can write prose -- prose that is necessary and lucid. In his book, he offers a new and healthy dimension to the life of virtually everyone." — Ned Rorem
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