Sun Out: Selected Poems, 1952—1954, one of Koch's two final works published posthumously in 2002, collects for the first time his earliest poems and provides a good look at the foundation for all his subsequent material. The poems are wonderfully detailed and give insight into his young relationships with other members of the New York School of Poets.

Koch's lifelong friend and fellow New York School poet, John Ashbery, has published dozens of poetry collections. Ashbery's Chinese Whispers (2002) includes work in typical Ashbery style—highly imaginative, rambling, often fragmented. "Chinese Whispers" refers to the British game in which whispered stories are passed along to the players until the original meaning has entirely disappeared.

Philip Auslander's The New York School Poets as Playwrights: O'Hara, Ashbery, Koch, Schuyler, and the Visual Arts (1989) provides a good look at how the methods and styles of...