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Blogbooks…
I think you all know about Bill Knott’s making all his poetry available through Lulu.com and for free PDF download from his blog. Well, here’s another way of going at it. KC poet Scott Keeney is creating what he calls “blogbooks,” collections of his poems set up as individual blogs. An inventive idea! His latest is Sappho Does Hay(na)ku, available also as a limited edition chapbook from Sephyrus. Best of all, his poems are very good—minimalist in the best sense: Cid Cormanesque, Rae Armantroutish, etc. And if you’re wondering what “hay(na)ku” means, check here. Thanks to Eileen R.Read More
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Poetry Class War
“[I]f you look at the dozens and hundreds of anthologies of contemporary USA poetry published over the past two decades, you’ll find compilations of poems or poets gathered and linked to represent many categories of differentiation and distinction, with one exception. There are no anthologies based on class.” This powerful observation comes from today’s installment of Bill Knott’s blog.Read More
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Vlad the Inhaler
Bill Knott mines pop culture, American lingo and be-bop here.Read More
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An Homage to Bill Knott
Readers of this blog know that one of my favorite poets is Bill Knott, whose latest collection I recently reviewed for The Bloomsbury Review. In response to that review, my friend and fellow poet Thomas R. Smith sent along his own trenchant homage to Knott. The poem is due to appear in a future issue of Tundra: THE ARTISTFor Bill Knott Crown-of-thorns time is over.You should be taken down,entombed and risen by now—you who walk these empty streetswith your palms unbroken, still searchingfor someone to crucify you.Read More
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The Further Adventures of Bill Knott
NOTE: This review appeared in the July/August 2008 Issue of The Bloomsbury Review. ©2008 by Joseph Hutchison. Stigmata Errata EtceteraPoems by Bill Knott Collages by Star Black Introduction by Mark Doty 68 pages, paper ISBN: 0-9754990-4-1 Saturnalia Books 13 E. Highland Avenue, 2nd Floor Philadelphia, PA 19118 Some poets adopt the artistic assumptions of their historical moment and achieve significance by discovering new subtleties in the existing modes or by extending the range of content those modes can accommodate.Read More
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Duty and Delight
Thankfully, Bill Knott has resurrected his blog, where he has been posting links to those of his collections that he is making available through his storefront at Lulu.com (both as bound volumes and as free PDF downloads). He’s also reposting some good material from his old blog.Read More
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Linh Dinh on a Roll…
Linh Dinh is on a roll at his blog, Detainees. First, there’s this very rich post on the anima, alchemy, animism, and Betty Boop (including a classic BB cartoon with Cab Calloway singing the chorus to “St. James Infirmary Blues”). Next, there are three related articles (I recommend starting here and reading them in order) all dealing with Israel’s itch to attack Iran. One of the many things I admire about Dinh is his openness to every current out there—aesthetic, political, social, psychological, ecological, economic and more.Read More
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On Poetic Values
Over on the Harriet blog, Kenneth Goldsmith posted an account of a keynote address by Marjorie Perloff at the recent Conceptual Poetry Conference in Tucson. It’s well worth reading, although it offers up a point of view I disagree with. Here is the response I posted a short while ago: I’m an admirer of Ms. Perloff and am a little reluctant to criticize her based on Kenneth’s summary, but if his characterization is accurate, I have to take issue with her logic.Read More
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Knott’s Basho Gives You Get-Up-And-Go
Bill Knott’s various visits to Bashō’s pond are about as entertaining as poetry gets.Read More
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The Astonishing Sinéad Morrissey
I don’t remember how I first head of the young Irish poet Sinéad Morrissey, but I’m grateful to Serendipity for sending her work my way. Her first two collections, There Was a Fire in Vancouver and Between Here and There are lively and adventurous, but her third, The State of the Prisons, places her among the half-dozen finest poets of her generation. That book’s eponymous poem, subtitled “A History of John Howard, Prison Reformer, 1726-1790,” is a masterpiece, but it’s too long to quote here.Read More