{"product_id":"new-addresses-isbn-9780375709128","title":"New Addresses","description":"Kenneth Koch, who has already considerably \"stretched our ideas of what it is possible to do in poetry\" (David Lehman), here takes on the classic poetic device of apostrophe, or direct address. His use of it gives him yet another chance to say things never said before in prose or in verse and, as well, to bring new life to a form in which Donne talked to Death, Shelley to the West Wind, Whitman to the Earth, Pound to his Songs, O'Hara to the Sun at Fire Island.  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKoch, in this new book, talks to things important in his life -- to Breath, to World War Two, to Orgasms, to the French Language, to Jewishness, to Psychoanalysis, to Sleep, to his Heart, to Friendship, to High Spirits, to his Twenties, to the Unknown. He makes of all these \"new addresses\" an exhilarating autobiography of a most surprising and unforeseeable kind.Kenneth Koch has published many volumes of poetry, including \u003cb\u003eNew Addresses\u003c\/b\u003e,  \u003cb\u003eStraits\u003c\/b\u003e and \u003cb\u003eOne Train\u003c\/b\u003e. He was awarded the Bollingen Prize for Poetry in 1995, in 1996 he received the Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry awarded by the Library of Congress, and he received the first Phi Beta Kappa Poetry award in November of 2001. His short plays, many of them produced off- and off-off-Broadway, are collected in \u003cb\u003eThe Gold Standard: A Book of Plays\u003c\/b\u003e. He has also written several books about poetry, including \u003cb\u003eWishes, Lies, and Dreams; Rose, Where Did You Get That Red?\u003c\/b\u003e; and, most recently, \u003cb\u003eMaking Your Own Days: The Pleasures of Reading and Writing Poetry\u003c\/b\u003e. He taught undergraduates at Columbia University for many years. He died in 2002.TO JEWISHNESS\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs you were contained in\u003cbr\u003eOr embodied by\u003cbr\u003eLouise Schlossman\u003cbr\u003eWhen she was a sophomore\u003cbr\u003eAt Walnut Hills\u003cbr\u003eHigh School\u003cbr\u003eIn Cincinnati, Ohio,\u003cbr\u003eI salute you\u003cbr\u003eAnd thank you\u003cbr\u003eFor the fact\u003cbr\u003eThat she received\u003cbr\u003eMy kisses with tolerance\u003cbr\u003eOn New Year's Eve\u003cbr\u003eAnd was not taken aback\u003cbr\u003eAs she well might have been\u003cbr\u003eHad she not had you\u003cbr\u003eAnd had I not, too.\u003cbr\u003eAh, you!\u003cbr\u003eDark, complicated you!\u003cbr\u003eJewishness, you are the tray \u003cbr\u003eOn it painted\u003cbr\u003eMoses, David and the Ten\u003cbr\u003eCommandments, the handwriting \u003cbr\u003eOn the Wall, Daniel\u003cbr\u003eIn the lions' den \u003cbr\u003eOn which my childhood \u003cbr\u003eWas served\u003cbr\u003eBy a mother\u003cbr\u003eAnd father \u003cbr\u003eWho took you\u003cbr\u003eTo Michigan \u003cbr\u003eOh the soft smell\u003cbr\u003eOf the pine\u003cbr\u003eTrees of Michigan \u003cbr\u003eAnd the gentle roar\u003cbr\u003eOf the Lake! Michigan\u003cbr\u003eOr sent you\u003cbr\u003eTo Wisconsin \u003cbr\u003eI went to camp there \u003cbr\u003eOn vacation, with me\u003cbr\u003eEvery year!\u003cbr\u003eMy counselors had you \u003cbr\u003eMy fellow campers \u003cbr\u003eHad you and \"Doc\u003cbr\u003eEhrenreich\" who\u003cbr\u003eRan the camp had you\u003cbr\u003eWe got up in the\u003cbr\u003eMornings you were there\u003cbr\u003eYou were in the canoes\u003cbr\u003eAnd on the baseball\u003cbr\u003eDiamond, everywhere around.\u003cbr\u003eAt home, growing\u003cbr\u003eTaller, you\u003cbr\u003eThrived, too. Louise had you\u003cbr\u003eAnd Charles had you\u003cbr\u003eAnd Jean had you\u003cbr\u003eAnd her sister Mary\u003cbr\u003eHad you\u003cbr\u003eWe all had you \u003cbr\u003eAnd your Bible\u003cbr\u003eFull of stories\u003cbr\u003eThat didn't apply\u003cbr\u003eOr didn't seem to apply\u003cbr\u003eIn the soft spring air\u003cbr\u003eOr dancing, or sitting in the cars\u003cbr\u003eTo anything we did.\u003cbr\u003eIn \"religious school\"\u003cbr\u003eAt the Isaac M. Wise\u003cbr\u003eSynagogue (called \"temple\")\u003cbr\u003eWe studied not you\u003cbr\u003eBut Judaism, the one who goes with you\u003cbr\u003eAnd is your guide, supposedly,\u003cbr\u003eOddly separated\u003cbr\u003eFrom you, though there\u003cbr\u003eIn the same building, you \u003cbr\u003eIn us children, and it \u003cbr\u003eOn the blackboards\u003cbr\u003eAnd in the books Bibles\u003cbr\u003eAnd books simplified\u003cbr\u003eFrom the Bible. How\u003cbr\u003eLike a Bible with shoulders\u003cbr\u003eRabbi Seligmann is!\u003cbr\u003eYou kept my parents and me\u003cbr\u003eOut of hotels near Crystal Lake\u003cbr\u003eIn Michigan and you resulted, for me,\u003cbr\u003eIn insults,\u003cbr\u003eAt which I felt\u003cbr\u003eChagrined but\u003cbr\u003eWas energized by you.\u003cbr\u003eYou went with me \u003cbr\u003eInto the army, where\u003cbr\u003eOne night in a foxhole\u003cbr\u003eOn Leyte a fellow soldier\u003cbr\u003eSaid Where are the fuckin Jews?\u003cbr\u003eBack in the PX. I d like to\u003cbr\u003eSee one of those bastards \u003cbr\u003eOut here. I d kill him!\u003cbr\u003eI decided to conceal\u003cbr\u003eYou, my you, anyway, for a while.\u003cbr\u003eForgive me for that.\u003cbr\u003eAt Harvard you\u003cbr\u003eLanded me in a room\u003cbr\u003eIn Kirkland House\u003cbr\u003eWith two other students\u003cbr\u003eWho had you. You \u003cbr\u003eKept me out of the Harvard Clubs\u003cbr\u003eAnd by this time (I \u003cbr\u003eWas twenty-one) I found\u003cbr\u003eI preferred\u003cbr\u003eKissing girls who didn t\u003cbr\u003eHave you. Blonde \u003cbr\u003eHair, blue eyes,\u003cbr\u003eAnd Christianity (oddly enough) had an\u003cbr\u003eAphrodisiac effect on me.\u003cbr\u003eAnd everything that opened \u003cbr\u003eUp to me, of poetry, of painting, of music,\u003cbr\u003eOf architecture in old cities\u003cbr\u003eDidn t have you \u003cbr\u003eI was\u003cbr\u003eDistressed\u003cbr\u003eThough I knew\u003cbr\u003eThose who had you\u003cbr\u003eHad hardly had the chance\u003cbr\u003eTo build cathedrals\u003cbr\u003eWrite secular epics\u003cbr\u003e(Like \u003ci\u003eOrlando Furioso) \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOr paint Annunciations--\"Well\u003cbr\u003eI had David\u003cbr\u003ein the wings.\" David\u003cbr\u003eWas a Jew, even a Hebrew.\u003cbr\u003eHe wasn't Jewish.\u003cbr\u003eYou're quite \u003cbr\u003eSomething else. I had Mahler,\u003cbr\u003eEinstein, and Freud. I didn't\u003cbr\u003eWant those three (then). I wanted\u003cbr\u003eShelley, Byron, Keats, Shakespeare,\u003cbr\u003eMozart, Monet. I wanted\u003cbr\u003eBotticelli and Fra Angelico.\u003cbr\u003e\"There you've \u003cbr\u003eChosen some hard ones\u003cbr\u003eFor me to connect to. But\u003cbr\u003eWhy not admit that I\u003cbr\u003eGave you the life\u003cbr\u003eOf the mind as a thing\u003cbr\u003eTo aspire to? And\u003cbr\u003eWhere did you go\u003cbr\u003eTo find your 'freedom'? to\u003cbr\u003eNew York, which was\u003cbr\u003eFull of me.\" I do know \u003cbr\u003eYour good qualities, at least\u003cbr\u003eGood things you did\u003cbr\u003eFor me--when I was ten\u003cbr\u003eYears old, how you brought\u003cbr\u003eJudaism in, to give ceremony\u003cbr\u003eTo everyday things, surprise and\u003cbr\u003eSymbolism and things beyond\u003cbr\u003eUnderstanding in the \u003cbr\u003eSynagogue then I\u003cbr\u003eWas excited by you, a rescuer\u003cbr\u003eOf me from the flatness of my life.\u003cbr\u003eBut then the flatness got you\u003cbr\u003eAnd I let it keep you\u003cbr\u003eAnd, perhaps, of all things known,\u003cbr\u003eThat was most ignorant. \"You\u003cbr\u003eSound like Yeats, but\u003cbr\u003eYou re not. Well, happy\u003cbr\u003eVoyage home, Kenneth, to\u003cbr\u003eThe parking lot\u003cbr\u003eOf understood experience. I'll be\u003cbr\u003eHere if you need me and here\u003cbr\u003eAfter you don t\u003cbr\u003eNeed anything else. HERE is a quality\u003cbr\u003eI have, and have had\u003cbr\u003eFor you, and for a lot of others,\u003cbr\u003eJust by being it, since you were born.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTO MY TWENTIES\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHow lucky that I ran into you\u003cbr\u003eWhen everything was possible\u003cbr\u003eFor my legs and arms, and with hope in my heart\u003cbr\u003eAnd so happy to see any woman(\u003cbr\u003eO woman! O my twentieth year!\u003cbr\u003eBasking in you, you \u003cbr\u003eOasis from both growing and decay\u003cbr\u003eFantastic unheard of nine- or ten-year oasis\u003cbr\u003eA palm tree, hey! And then another\u003cbr\u003eAnd another (and water!\u003cbr\u003eI'm still very impressed by you. Whither,\u003cbr\u003eMidst falling decades, have you gone? Oh in what lucky fellow,\u003cbr\u003eUnsure of himself, upset, and unemployable\u003cbr\u003eFor the moment in any case, do you live now?\u003cbr\u003eFrom my window I drop a nickel\u003cbr\u003eBy mistake. With \u003cbr\u003eYou I race down to get it\u003cbr\u003eBut I find there on\u003cbr\u003eThe street instead, a good friend,\u003cbr\u003eX---- N------, who says to me\u003cbr\u003eKenneth do you have a minute?\u003cbr\u003eAnd I say yes! I am in my twenties!\u003cbr\u003eI have plenty of time! In you I marry,\u003cbr\u003eIn you I first go to France; I make my best friends\u003cbr\u003eIn you, and a few enemies. I \u003cbr\u003eWrite a lot and am living all the time\u003cbr\u003eAnd thinking about living. I loved to frequent you\u003cbr\u003eAfter my teens and before my thirties.\u003cbr\u003eYou three together in a bar\u003cbr\u003eI always preferred you because you were midmost\u003cbr\u003eMost lustrous apparently strongest\u003cbr\u003eAlthough now that I look back on you\u003cbr\u003eWhat part have you played?\u003cbr\u003eYou never, ever, were stingy.\u003cbr\u003eWhat you gave me you gave whole\u003cbr\u003eBut as for telling\u003cbr\u003eMe how best to use it\u003cbr\u003eYou weren't a genius at that.\u003cbr\u003eTwenties, my soul\u003cbr\u003eIs yours for the asking\u003cbr\u003eYou know that, if you ever come back.","brand":"Knopf","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303913312485,"sku":"NP9780375709128","price":19.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780375709128.jpg?v=1767733648","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/new-addresses-isbn-9780375709128","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}