Kenneth Koch

I wonder if I ever thought of an ideal reader... I guess when I was in my 20s and in New York and maybe even in my early 30s, I would write for my wife Janice... mainly for my poet friends and my wife, who was very smart about poetry.

One trouble with a kind of falsely therapeutic and always reassuring attitude that it is easy to fall into with old people is the tendency to be satisfied with too little.

I thought, 'There are a lot of poets who have the courage to look into the abyss, but there are very few who have the courage to look happiness in the face and write about it,' which is what I wanted to be able to do.

AESTHETICS OF INTEGRITYFor every star in the skySomeone is holding his ground.