About Kenneth Koch
Kenneth Koch was an American poet, playwright, and professor, active from the 1950s until his death at age 77. He was a prominent poet of the New York School of poetry. This was a loose group of poets including Frank O'Hara and John Ashbery that eschewed contemporary introspective poetry in favor of an exuberant, cosmopolitan style that drew major inspiration from travel, painting, and music. Comical, narrative, punning and exuberant are adjectives that have been associated with his work. While a student at Harvard, Koch won the prestigious Glascock Prize in 1948. Koch won the Bollingen Prize for One Train (1994) and On The Great Atlantic Rainway: Selected Poems 1950-1988 (1994), followed closely by the Phi Beta Kappa Poetry Award winner New Addresses (2000). The 1960s saw his first published books of poetry, but his poetry did not garner wider popular acclaim until the 1970s with his book The Art of Love: Poems (1975).
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.