Herbert Kohl, Saturday Review
"Perhaps the best book I have read portraying the joy and excitement young people experience when writing in a happy place where people care about their works...The ideas Koch uses are good. I've tried them with my writing classes, and they work."


Allen Wiggins, Cleveland Plain Dealer
"I wish every grade school teacher would run out and read Kenneth Koch's Wishes, Lies, and Dreams. If many of them took Koch's advice seriously we would have at the very least a poetry revolution, not to mention the possibility that a lot of kids would start having a good time in school."


Virginia Quarterly Review
"There are enough ideas in the book, all laid out in good detail by Koch, and with great respect for his fellow artists, the students, to give other teachers a workable plan for teaching poetry...Koch has helped people discover joy in words, and that is what the love of poetry is all about."


Book Description
The classic, inspiring account of a poet's experience teaching school children to write poetry When Kenneth Koch entered the Manhattan classrooms of P.S. 61, the children, excited by the opportunity to work with an instructor able to inspire their talent and energy, would clap and shout with pleasure. In this vivid account, Koch describes his inventive methods for teaching these children how to create poems and gives numerous examples of their work. Wishes, Lies, and Dreams is a valuable text for all those who care about freeing the creative imagination and educating the young.


About the Author
Kenneth Koch is a celebrated poet and the author of numerous books of poetry, literary criticism, short fiction, and plays. He has won many literary awards, including the Bollingen Prize for Poetry in 1995. A professor of English at Columbia University, Koch lives in New York City.

ANNOTATION

This is "perhaps the best book I have read portraying the joy and excitement young people experience when writing."--Herbert Kohl, Saturday Review

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The classic, inspiring account of a poet's experience teaching school children to write poetry

When Kenneth Koch entered the Manhattan classrooms of P.S. 61, the children, excited by the opportunity to work with an instructor able to inspire their talent and energy, would clap and shout with pleasure. In this vivid account, Koch describes his inventive methods for teaching these children how to create poems and gives numerous examples of their work. Wishes, Lies, and Dreams is a valuable text for all those who care about freeing the creative imagination and educating the young.

Author Biography: Kenneth Koch is a celebrated poet and the author of numerous books of poetry, literary criticism, short fiction, and plays. He has won many literary awards, including the Bollingen Prize for Poetry in 1995. A professor of English at Columbia University, Koch lives in New York City.

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

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