Making Your Own Days - by Kenneth Koch (Paperback)

About the Book

From the winner of the Bollingen Prize in poetry and author of the classic bestseller "Rose, Where Did You Get That Red?" comes a unique, highly entertaining book for anyone who wants to be a better reader and writer of poetry.

Book Synopsis

From one of the most esteemed American poets of the twenty-first century comes a celebration of poetry and an invitation for anyone to experience its beauty and wonder.

Full of fresh and exciting insights, Making Your Own Days illuminates the somewhat mysterious subject of poetry for those who read it and for those who write it--as well as for those who would like to read and write it better. By treating poetry not as a special use of language but as a distinct language--unlike the one used in prose and conversation--Koch clarifies the nature of poetic inspiration, how poems are written and revised, and what happens to the heart and mind while reading a poem.

Koch also provides a rich anthology of more than ninety works from poets past and present. Lyric poems, excerpts from long poems and poetic plays, poems in English, and poems in translation from Homer and Sappho to Lorca, Snyder, and Ashbery; each selection is accompanied by an explanatory note designed to complement and clarify the text and to put pleasure back into the experience of poetry.

Review Quotes

David Lehman American Poetry Review A poet of the highest originality....[Koch] has stretched our ideas of what it is possible to do in poetry.

Frank Kermode I would recommend Koch's way of teaching poetry above all others. His book is informative, witty, and surprising. It's also authoritative...it is a precious defense of poetry.

Michael Dirda The Washington Post Book World Kenneth Koch is one of our finest living poets....Making Your Own Days is...exhilarating.

Ned Rorem Koch 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.

About the Author

Kenneth Koch is the author of many books of poetry, most recently Straits, and won the Bollingen Prize for Poetry in 1994. He has also published fiction and plays, as well as books on the teaching of poetry: Wishes, Lies and Dreams; Rose, Where Did You Get That Red?; and I Never Told Anybody. He lives in New York City, where he is professor of English at Columbia University