Kenneth Koch

I was influenced by surrealist poetry and painting as were thousands of other people, and it seems to me to have become a part of the way I write, but it's not.

I've had trouble with criticism, I guess. It's hard to know what role criticism plays in either encouraging poets or in getting other people to read them.

I was excited by what my painter friends were doing, and they seemed to be interested in our poetry too, and that was a wonderful little, fizzy sort of world.

If I could have any artist's work on my sitting room wall it would probably be by Van Gogh or Picasso.

I love Hershey's chocolate. I feel the same about chocolate as I do about wine. Connoisseurs like dark chocolate and they like nasty wine that doesn't taste good to me. I don't get it!

I think the long interview has an important life.