Word: amaranth
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...commotion of Koch's jouncing, rhymed octaves (following the rhythm of Byron's Don Juan) are Ko, a young Japanese pitcher who earns a tryout with the Dodgers and throws with such force that he shatters grandstands: Dog Boss, a financier who has cornered the pooch market; Amaranth, the king of England; a nameless but enchanted fish; and Huddel, a cockney. The cast might have come from the nightmare of a blintz-tormented sorcerer, and its actions provide no political, religious or metaphysical insights...
...metaphysical insight here, after all) Koch observes that their bodies are "almanacs to teach . . . the poet how to shape his lines. The woodsman what is lacking in the pines." All manner of things happen to the author's creatures; Ko pitches a perfect game, King Amaranth decides that England's girls should undrape too, and several characters turn into statues. Analyzing these events is no more profitable than dissecting a soap bubble, or trying to explain a minor character named Higby, who "wears a wig be-/Cause he has no hair at all beneath/The wig he wears because...