Number 200: Kenneth Koch "A Momentary Longing To Hear Sad Advice from One Long Dead"

A Momentary Longing To Hear Sad Advice from One Long Dead

Who was my teacher at Harvard. Did not wear overcoat
Saying to me as we walked across the Yard
Cold brittle autumn is you should be wearing overcoat. I said
You are not wearing overcoat. He said,
You should do as I say not do as I do.
Just how American it was and how late Forties it was
Delmore, but not I, was probably aware. He quoted Finnegans Wake to me
In his New York apartment sitting on chair
Table directly in front of him. There did he write? I am wondering.
Look at this photograph said of his mother and father.
Coney Island. Do they look happy? He couldn't figure it out.
Believed Pogo to be at the limits of our culture.
Pogo. Walt Kelly must have read Joyce Delmore said.
Why don't you ask him?
Why don't you ask Walt Kelly if he read Finnegans Wake or not.
Your parents don't look happy but it is just a photograph.
Maybe they felt awkward posing for photographs.
Maybe it is just a bad photograph. Delmore is not listening
I want to hear him tell me something sad but however true.
Delmore in his tomb is sitting. People say yes everyone is dying
But here read this happy book on the subject. Not Delmore. Not that rueful man.

-- Kenneth Koch

Hap Notes: Koch is one of my favorite poets, although his poems are not particularly favorites of mine. I know that's an odd thing to say. Koch lived and breathed poetry, saw the poetry in the cadences of everyday life, encouraged all people (especially children and the elderly) to write poetry and felt deeply about literature and friends and his wife and his children. He felt deeply and he knew how to describe it. Is there anything more brilliantly put than "crazier than shirt tales in the wind" or "the minuet of stars"?

His poems ARE him in some sense and as you read his work with its "unsyntactical beauty" you become part of his life, part of his story and you cannot help but love him, his brilliant asides, funny comments and beautiful images. He makes you laugh and cry. As he so aptly put it, ""The truth is that one can be funny and serious at the same time."

In today's poem he is talking about the poet Delmore Schwartz whom he studied under at Harvard. Schwartz was a literary skyrocket when he first started writing. He was bathed with praise, was the youngest poet to receive the Bollingen Prize in 1959 and was hailed as a fresh new literary voice. He started at the top and you know what that means: he had nowhere to go but down and down he went into mental hospitals and heavy drinking.

Koch was so excited to be studying under Schwartz, whose poems he'd read in the New Directions anthologies. "I was so star-struck!" Koch said. Now, I know that Koch sounds like Yoda when he says about Schwartz's desk "There did he write? I am wondering." It's a delightful thought to me that Yoda could be patterned after Koch (or Schwartz, for that matter) but I highly doubt it. The stirred up grammar is due to an emotion coming through in his reverie as he's thinking of his late mentor.

"Do as I say, not as I do" was not as well-used when Schwartz said it to Koch in the late 40s so it was clever, self-deprecating and not cliche then. Pogo is a comic strip by Walt Kelly known for its brilliant literary references, highly charged political commentary and South Georgia "Swamp-speakin" animal population. (Pogo, the main character is a possum. The masthead is the poster Kelly did for the first Earth Day in 1971. I think I've mentioned before that this country used to be flecked with litter everywhere one went. Kelly's cartoon is barely an exaggeration.) Here's a quick refresher on Kelly: www.bpib.com/kelly.htm

The Coney Island photograph shows us many things but one of them is a reflection on Schwartz's "In Dreams Begin Responsibilities," the short story that launched him to prominence which we shall talk about more when we get to him.

Schwartz, by the way (oh, yeah, you know his work is coming this week sometime, yes?) was famous for sitting at a tavern in New York with his well-thumbed copy of Finnegan's Wake, which he read aloud to his circle of admirers. He lived like a nomad, traveling from one seedy hotel desert to another. When he died, his body was not identified for three days at the morgue. He lived the weary sad life of an alcoholic whose fame came too soon, maybe, and pessimism was his daily bread.

Schwartz was a mesmerizing talker and he was vital and brilliant when Koch studied under him and Koch said, "Most of all, he gave me the image of a real poet."

One more thing I want to mention about Koch. Back in the late 60s there was a "revolutionary" group called "Back Against The Wall Motherfuckers." Their name was based on a poem "Black People!" by Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones) and they had some foggy idea about revolutionary art which was somewhat interesting and somewhat ill-conceived. At one point, as a stunt, they "assassinated" Kenneth Koch while he was giving a reading at St. Mark's Church in New York. A member of the group pointed a handgun at the podium, shouted "Koch!" and fired a round of blanks at Koch. Koch responded, "Grow up."

Here's a wonderful 20 minute treat– Koch reading his own poetry at the Library of Congress: www.poetryfoundation.org/features/audioitem/1866 (The last two poems he reads, "The History of Jazz" and "The Circus" are two of my (and many others') favorite poems by him. Hearing him read them in his smooth voice is addictive. He's magical.

Here is where we have talked about Koch before: happopoemouse.blogspot.com/2010/12/number-5-kenneth-koch-to-roman-forum_11.html (this poem has gotten the second most hits on this blog- it's wonderful!)