Ninety-fifth Street

"John Koethe was born in San Diego, California, in 1945. He is not only a fine poet, but also a professor of philosophy and the the author of a book on Wittgenstein's thought... Reviewers inevitably compare him to Wallace Stevens because both are supposedly fond of philosophizing abstractly... The difference is Koethe examines ideas in a far more autobiographical way. He tells us about his life and his feelings with a directness that Stevens would never have allowed himself... Koethe is aware of his proclivity to lose himself in sentimental reveries. His poems, as he admits, are more or less convoluted variations on a single emotion and idea: true understanding lay in childhood. That makes them all sound as if they were parts of a long poem, a contemporary version of Wordsworth's "The Prelude," whose subject once again is the growth of the poet's mind..." -- Charles Simic