James Schuyler, John Ashbery, and Kenneth Koch
Here is an excerpt from James Schuyler’s diary on August 5, 1968, 48 years ago today, at Fairfield Porter’s home on Great Spruce Head Island in Maine:
Blue, with a few sharp streaks of white. The water is making its knitting noise, Lizzie [Porter] and Katherine [Koch] are talking on the floor in front of the fireplace, where they slept on quilts after Bruno woke them up at 6 and they in turn woke me. Kenneth is in the kitchen asking Anne [Porter] for advice and favors. Fairfield is painting a new view from his porch looking east, an intimate one of a little, wild enclosure (that which is enclosed being, of course, nothing)…
Went for a long walk with Kenneth [Koch] yesterday noon and swam at Skokey (sp?) Beach, lying naked in the cold water that was a little warm on top and looking at the pebbles and snails and tiny shrimp-like creatures. Hot sun, air and no clothes: a recipe from the “classic cuisine.”
Fairfield Porter, “The Table on the Porch” (1971)
Andrew Epstein
Locus Solus: The New York School of Poets 