{"title":"Kenneth Koch","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"hotel-lambosa","title":"Hotel Lambosa","description":"\u003ch3 style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"color: #9a6372;\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eStories by Kenneth Koch\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003ch5 style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003eMay 1, 1993 • 4.5 x 7.5 • 128 pages • 978-1-56689-008-3\u003c\/h5\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“No other poet of our time,” Tom Disch wrote of Kenneth Koch, “has lived up so consistently to his own exigent demands.” As a writer of fiction, Koch has done the same. This is his first book of stories. It is part of the Coffee-To-Go Short-Short Stories series.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eKenneth Koch (1925 – 2002), known for his association with the New York School of poetry, wrote many collections of poetry, fictions, plays, and nonfiction. His books include \u003cem\u003eSeasons on Earth, On the Edge, Thank You and Other Poems, The Art of Love, One Thousand Avant-Garde Plays, Hotel Lambosa,\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eCollected Fiction,\u003c\/em\u003e as well as several books on teaching children to write poetry. Koch was awarded numerous honors, including the Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry, awarded by the Library of Congress in 1996, as well as awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Fulbright, Guggenheim, and Ingram-Merrill foundations. In 1996 he was inducted as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch5 style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h5\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReviews\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"text\"\u003e“Any poet can write prose but few as marvelously as this. Postmarked from everywhere, Venice, Beijing, Zaire, there are the mysteries of love, life, and art, as well as images or worlds you have longed for.” \u003cstrong\u003e—James Salter\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“It’s brilliant, maybe the best work Koch has ever done.” \u003cstrong\u003e—Phillip Lopate\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003cem\u003eHotel Lambosa\u003c\/em\u003e is a place of magic, for transients and permanents alike.” \u003cstrong\u003e—John Ashbery\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003cem\u003eHotel Lambosa\u003c\/em\u003e beautifully extends and ornaments Kenneth Koch’s astonishing body of work.” \u003cstrong\u003e—Gilbert Sorrentino\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CHPbeta","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43707468686,"sku":"","price":14.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1475\/9808\/products\/Hotel-Lambosa-RGB.jpg?v=1499210745"},{"product_id":"the-banquet","title":"The Banquet","description":"\u003ch3 style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"color: #9a6372;\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePlays, films, and librettos by Kenneth Koch\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003ch5 style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003eJuly 16, 2013 • Paperback Original • 6 x 9 • 634 pages • 978-1-56689-329-9\u003c\/h5\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003eThe complete plays, including never before published work, from one of the major writers of the twentieth century.\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eKenneth Koch was a prominent American poet of the New York School and one of America’s most diversely talented writers. \u003cem\u003eThe Banquet\u003c\/em\u003e celebrates his work as an avant-garde playwright, gathering 144 plays, ten screenplays, and five librettos spanning more than five decades of experimental work. Koch’s dramatic work was produced in New York—both Off Broadway and Off, Off Broadway—and in opera houses in the United States and Europe. Witty and provocative, and drawing on poetry, improvisational comedy, satire, Japanese Noh and Kabuki theater, Renaissance drama, and miracle plays, Koch’s work has a deft, humane touch, ranging from the playful to the sublime.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eKenneth Koch (1925 – 2002), known for his association with the New York School of poetry, wrote many collections of poetry, fictions, plays, and nonfiction. His books include \u003cem\u003eSeasons on Earth, On the Edge, Thank You and Other Poems, The Art of Love, One Thousand Avant-Garde Plays, Hotel Lambosa,\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eCollected Fiction,\u003c\/em\u003e as well as several books on teaching children to write poetry. Koch was awarded numerous honors, including the Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry, awarded by the Library of Congress in 1996, as well as awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Fulbright, Guggenheim, and Ingram-Merrill foundations. In 1996 he was inducted as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003ch5 style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003eThanks to a 2013 ADA Access Improvement Grant administered by \u003cspan style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"http:\/\/vsamn.org\/\"\u003eVSA Minnesota\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e for the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, this title is also formatted for screen readers which make text accessible to the blind and visually impaired. To purchase this title for use with a screen reader please call (612) 338-0125 or email us at \u003cspan style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"mailto:info@coffeehousepress.org\"\u003einfo@coffeehousepress.org\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e.\u003c\/h5\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReviews\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"text\"\u003e“\u003cem\u003eThe Banquet\u003c\/em\u003e succeeds in spades, giving us an entire ‘world of pure experience,’ to borrow William James’s phrase, one that is just waiting to be brought to life.” \u003cstrong\u003e—\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLos Angeles Review of Books\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Some writers excel in more than one form. . . . The 600-plus pages of \u003cem\u003eThe Banquet \u003c\/em\u003esuggest that the late poet Kenneth Koch had two right hands.” \u003cstrong\u003e—\u003cem\u003eNew York Observer\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The plays abolish time and space . . . If we lived in Koch’s Arcady, the text seems to ask, might we live forever?” \u003cstrong\u003e—\u003cem\u003ePoetry Magazine\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[These plays] are as funny and inventive as Koch could be. Count him among the few to move beyond Gertrude Stein in establishing alternative performance texts.” \u003cstrong\u003e—\u003cem\u003eRain Taxi Review\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“This is theater in which each sentence is a small occasion. Kenneth Koch’s plays are animated by the same spirit in which the ceilings of the stages of Shakespeare’s time were painted with the sun, moon, and stars; looking at a stage, he saw not a living room but the world, which included not only the kinds of human relations that seemed to preoccupy much of the drama of his day but philosophy and religion, the birth and death of civilizations, existence in time and space, and the blessedly dumb and trivial, too. Koch has laid out a banquet, to be sure, and we had better come in and sit down. As one of his latecomers sings, ‘Our revels now begin.’” \u003cstrong\u003e—Amber Reed,\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cstrong\u003efrom the introduction\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“These are plays that indeed play with the practice of play writing and play-making, that taken altogether as a body of work, pose a rather substantial challenge to play writing as usual. But if a tease is a challenge, then there is another aspect to the game: The implied offer of a seduction.” \u003cstrong\u003e—Mac Wellman,\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cstrong\u003efrom the foreword\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Koch’s plays . . . give a peculiarly succinct and eloquent form to his enormously animated conception of things.” \u003cstrong\u003e—F. W. Dupee\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“These are bursts of charming joy, mystery, surprise and delight animated by a love of language and a deep belief in its possibilities . . . \u003cem\u003eThe Banquet\u003c\/em\u003e is the perfect title for this collection, a book to be read and reread.” \u003cstrong\u003e—\u003cem\u003eBODY\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CHPbeta","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":2868932608024,"sku":"","price":49.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":43707722958,"sku":"","price":29.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1475\/9808\/products\/The-Banquet.jpg?v=1499210970"},{"product_id":"the-collected-fiction-of-kenneth-koch","title":"The Collected Fiction of Kenneth Koch","description":"\u003ch3 style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"color: #9a6372;\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFiction by Kenneth Koch, edited by Jordan Davis, Karen Koch, and Ron Padgett, with an introduction by Jordan Davis \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003ch5 style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003eOctober 1, 2005 • 6 x 9 • 408 pages • 978-1-56689-180-6\u003c\/h5\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003eCollected fiction from one of America’s finest writers.\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHilarious and profoundly moving, this volume restores to print all the fiction of the writer whom John Ashbery called “simply the best we have.” An essential book for anyone interested in discovering what American literature might still hope to be, \u003cem\u003eCollected Fiction\u003c\/em\u003e includes Koch’s rambunctious novel \u003cem\u003eThe Red Robins\u003c\/em\u003e as well as his semi-autobiographical stories from \u003cem\u003eHotel Lambosa.\u003c\/em\u003e “The New Orleans Stories” and “The Soviet Room” appear here for the first time along with Koch’s previously uncollected short fiction—a warmhearted parody of a children’s adventure narrative and a story detailing the mysteries uncovered by an obsessive postcard detective. Collected here for the first time, Kenneth Koch’s fiction creates an optimistic and comic world in which the pursuit of happiness is taken very seriously.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eKenneth Koch (1925 – 2002), known for his association with the New York School of poetry, wrote many collections of poetry, fictions, plays, and nonfiction. His books include \u003cem\u003eSeasons on Earth, On the Edge, Thank You and Other Poems, The Art of Love, One Thousand Avant-Garde Plays, Hotel Lambosa,\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eCollected Fiction,\u003c\/em\u003e as well as several books on teaching children to write poetry. Koch was awarded numerous honors, including the Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry, awarded by the Library of Congress in 1996, as well as awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Fulbright, Guggenheim, and Ingram-Merrill foundations. In 1996 he was inducted as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch5 style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h5\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReviews\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"text\"\u003e“As a teenager and aspiring writer I always told myself I wanted to be to novel-writing what Kenneth Koch was to poetry: the funniest serious writer and the happiest sad writer going, an experimenter with forms who was so intoxicatingly personal and insouciant that you’d never balk at his radicalism. So far as I knew he’d left the field clear. Perhaps it was lucky for me that I hadn’t yet discovered the mad and masterful \u003cem\u003eRed Robins,\u003c\/em\u003e or the stories from \u003cem\u003eHotel Lambosa\u003c\/em\u003e and after, including the glittering ‘New Orleans’ cycle. I might have concluded there wasn’t anything left for me to accomplish. But by now I’m safe and it’s lucky for us all that you’re holding Koch’s collected fiction in your hands right now. Koch’s seasons on our earth were blessed ones and these traces, some of them among his last, are gifts.” \u003cstrong\u003e—Jonathan Lethem\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Collecting Kenneth Koch’s fiction is an inspiring and necessary undertaking. In its scope and variety it reveals an essential if little-known aspect of Koch’s genius, one in which his redoubtable wit, imagination, and intelligence exploit the possibilities of prose to create dazzling effects that in an altogether novel way match those of his poetry.” \u003cstrong\u003e—Harry Matthews\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CHPbeta","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":43707730382,"sku":"","price":30.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":2870331736088,"sku":"","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1475\/9808\/products\/Collected-Fiction-Kenneth-Koch.jpg?v=1499210982"}],"url":"https:\/\/coffeehousepress.org\/collections\/kenneth-koch.oembed","provider":"Coffee House Press","version":"1.0","type":"link"}