I don't know why anyone would have wanted to kill the late, great Kenneth Koch(ok, maybe those folks who disliked his brand of humor infused poetry), but apparently in 1968, some crazed, anarchist poet obviously felt the need to stage a fake assassination of a "mainstream", "bourgeois" poet and singled out Koch. Funny thing was, Koch was far from mainstream so the whole stunt came off as childish and weird.
Listen to Ron Padgett and Andrei Codrescu recount the bizarre faked assassination attempt on Kenneth Koch at St. Mark's Church here.
2 comments:
First off, it wasn't some 'crazed poet' who shot at Koch with blanks... It was a proto-punk anarchist group known as UAW/MF (Up Against the Wall Motherfuckers). They found Koch's poetry to be 'bourgeois' and therefore oppressive because Koch sidelined contemporary poetry. He favored melodramatic prose-style poetry about beauty and travel. UAW/MF prefers Bukowski. One can see that that the anarchist group has a better taste than you...
lol moondoogy got destroyed.
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