Profession: playwright

Koch met Ashbery at university, O’Hara following them to New York. De Kooning, Dine, Katz, Rivers, Saint Phalle, Porter and Grooms were among the artists and fellow-poets he mixed with. Mathews, Schuyler and Ashbery were his co-editors and founders of Locus Solus magazine. Padgett, taught by him, became a professional colleague, and with his close friend Brainard became another presence in New York circles. Koch challenged Ponge on his perceptions of the city’s appearance, deciding by his response that he was a genius. Ginsberg did his best to outdo Koch in rhyming.

Gay’s good friend Swift suggested the idea for ‘The Beggar’s Opera’. Pope was the dedicatee of his first published work, and became a lifelong friend. Both Pope and Arbuthnot collaborated with him: Pope, Swift, Arbuthnot and Gay were mainstays of the ‘Scriblerus Club’. Congreve was unfailingly kind to him, while Montagu collaborated on some pieces with him and Pope that are mostly credited to her alone. He had studied with Handel, and was the principal librettist for ‘Acis and Galatea’ (Pope also contributing). Voltaire met him during his two years’ exile in England, and attended his ‘The Beggar’s Opera.’

Purcell and Dryden collaborated more than once, and seem to have respected one another. Congreve was Dryden’s protégé then friend, and said he was “exceedingly humane and compassionate”. Addison also became a friend, after addressing a poem to the former poet laureate. Locke was known from schooldays, while Pope as a 12-year-old was taken to see the veteran Dryden, in the coffee-house where he held court and spent his evenings. Shadwell had been on friendly terms, Dryden contributing a prologue to one of his plays; Shadwell then satirised him in print, Dryden responding in kind.

Eliot dithered over Thomas’s poems, but encouraged him and sent him money. Auden, Spender and MacNeice broadcast with him, Spender also raising money for him, and MacNeice attending his funeral. Miller met him while visiting an old friend in London; Ferlinghetti met him in Paris and drank with him in San Francisco. Chaplin threw him out for arriving drunk, Thomas retaliating by urinating on a plant on his doorstep. Stravinsky wrote to him just before he died, about collaborating on a post-apocalyptic opera, and composed a piece dedicated to his memory.