Kenneth Koch

Kenneth Koch (February, 27 1925 – July 6, 2002) was an American poet, playwright, and teacher.
As a student at Harvard University, Koch met fellow students Frank O’Hara and John Ashbery. With them and others in the 1950s, he was part of what people called The New York School, a loose group of poets and painters. At Harvard, he received a bachelor of arts degree. Then he attended Columbia University for his PhD..
He taught at Columbia University. He thought about how to teach children and older people to write poetry. He explained these ways in books like "Wishes, Lies and Dreams;" "Rose, Where Did You Get That Red;" and "I Never Told Anybody".
He was known for using much humor in his poems.
"New Addresses" (2000) was a finalist for the National Book Award. "One Train" and "On the Great Atlantic Rainway, Selected Poems 1950–1988" both earned him the Bollingen Prize in 1995. He won the Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry in 1996. He was given three Fulbright scholarships and a National Endowment for the Arts grant.