Read Bill Knott

He is consistently original in language and thought, and he is posting his poems on his blog. I read The Unsubscriber, and poem after poem blew me away.

Here's the beginning of the first, and titular, poem of that book:

Like all children, you were a de facto
Member of the Flat Earth Society,
Believing nothing but what you could see
Or touch or whatever sense led act to...

The four lines are the first quatrain of a very contemporary sonnet. His non-reverent use of traditional forms is also an exciting aspect of the book.

Comments

Anonymous said…
The latest series of posts (from the beginning of August) on his blog are very, very painful. i've got too many questions and too many conflicting thoughts about the whole thing, and not having read much of his work i really feel i am in no position to comment, but i was reminded of how much of themselves writers put into their work, and how much power critics / reviewers have. Which probably isn't saying anything particularly new, but it's just that this came across with a new intensity in those latest blog posts.
6:34 AM
Jee Leong said…
I will check out those new posts from August. I think his work deserves far greater recognition than he is getting.

Jee Leong
3:29 AM
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