One Train: Poems

Longtime readers of Koch-who have waited eight years for a new collection-might, at first glance, be disappointed by this slender volume of poems (13 in all). But the first lines of the introductory poem ``One Train May Hide Another'' (a response to a sign at a railroad crossing in Kenya), will quickly dispel such fears: ``In a poem, one line may hide another line,/ As at a crossing, one train may hide another train.'' One quickly eases into the familiar Kochean world where incongruous images are brought together with narrative ingenuity and verbal wit. A founder of the New York School of poets, Koch has retained the (deceptively) childlike curiosity that is the hallmark of much of his work; it's an odd inquisitiveness that finds lyrical inspiration in seemingly unusable material. One poem, for instance, invites us to ruminate on the aesthetics of a family picnic, of being a baseball, or of being a road (to name but a few). Another is written in the voices of various ships at sea. Yet another recalls an encounter with six women from Minneapolis while skiing in Stockholm (``It seemed to me I should have done something at the time,/ To have used all that energy. Lovemaking is one way to use it and writing is another./ Both maybe are overestimated, because the relation is so clear''). Playful, erudite, and always original, Koch's One Train is sure to please readers new and old. (Dec.)