Kenneth Koch Centennial tomorrow (looks like a Kenneth Koch week all this week!). We continue with two poems – Allen, influenced-by-Koch. The first, an early homage to the New York School, included in the posthumously-published Wait Till I’m Dead, the second, the classic Koch parody, “Homework“
Bill Morgan in a note on this poem writes: “While on a trip to South America Ginsberg tried to interest Lawrence Ferlinghetti in publishing some of the New York School poets he knew. Here he composed a poem their style”
And twenty years later:
HOMEWORK
Homage Kenneth Koch
If I were doing my Laundry I’d wash my dirty Iran
I’d throw in my United States, and pour on the Ivory Soap, scrub up Africa, put all the birds and elephants back in the jungle,
I’d wash the Amazon river and clean the oily Carib & Gulf of Mexico,
Rub that smog off the North Pole, wipe up all the pipelines in Alaska,
Rub a dub dub for Rocky Flats and Los Alamos, Flush that sparkly Cesium out of Love Canal
Rinse down the Acid Rain over the Parthenon & Sphinx, Drain Sludge out of the Mediterranean basin & make it azure again,
Put some blueing back into the sky over the Rhine, bleach the little Clouds so snow return white as snow,
Cleanse the Hudson Thames & Neckar, Drain the Suds out of Lake Erie
Then I’d throw big Asia in one giant Load & wash out the blood & Agent Orange,
Dump the whole mess of Russia and China in the wringer, squeeze out the tattletail Gray of U.S. Central American police state,
& put the planet in the drier & let it sit 20 minutes or an Aeon till it came out clean.
Boulder, April 26, 1980
and next month in New York, March 17 at The New School – Kenneth Koch at 100 – A Celebration (a celebration of his life and work – with an all-star cast)
Participants include film director Jim Jarmusch, critic Lucy Sante, artists Jim Dine and Alex Katz, legendary editor of Paris Review Maxine Groffsky, essayist Phillip Lopate, and poets Ron Padgett, Charles North, Tony Towle, John Keene, and Jeffrey Harrison. Poet and editor Jordan Davis will host the event, with a general introduction by Robert Polito of The New School.