gno

Last night, the gnoers got together to celebrate a gnoer's birthdayhurray, one marvelous Immy Wallenfels. Immy, Sarah Harwell, Farah Marklevits and this blogger did get together and eat cake and admire Sarah's new dining room table and Hannah's absolutely fabulosio new bed (Hannah's Sarah's nine-year old daughter) and then we settled down in the living room to chat and read poetry aloud a laud all la-la love o' gno. Sarah had gotten the Lenore Marshall award books out along with six or seven Koch livres from le libre. We tried out the Lenore Marshall and there went a "hmmm." and there went a "hmph." and there and there went a "mmm, hmmm." but then whenly winningly we went around and read Koch and each read and smiled and at one point all looked at each other and there exclaimed, "Ohhhhhhhhhhh!" and then again, here and there and there and here and "Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh!" Kenneth Koch is funny also expansive, open, living also yes. Humor, I'll posit here, is a necessary element in a truly open poetry. Gno enjoyed that Koch's poems are, rather than monument wrought, thought into moving beings/animals. We love that kinda sing.

Koch is it!
The greatest Koch you've ever Koch.
Koch is it.
The fun who'll never fret you frown.
Koch is Lit.
Koch is Kenneth!




 Variations On A Theme By This Is Just to Say
by William Carlos Williams


 1
I chopped down the house that you had been saving to live in next summer.
I am sorry, but it was morning, and I had nothing to do
and its wooden beams were so inviting.

2
We laughed at the hollyhocks together
and then I sprayed them with lye.
Forgive me. I simply do not know what I am doing.

3
I gave away the money that you had been saving to live on for the
next ten years.
The man who asked for it was shabby
and the firm March wind on the porch was so juicy and cold.

4
Last evening we went dancing and I broke your leg.
Forgive me. I was clumsy and
I wanted you here in the wards, where I am the doctor!