In my twenties I was thrilled to discover Bill Knott, who sometimes wrote in rhyme and meter, always in surprising ways. He also used some confessional elements, lamenting, often comically, his personal plight, as well as grim facts of history. His poems are both hilarious and disturbing. I didn’t know poets could do that. In his poem about Ezra Pound, “Penny Wise,” he wrote:
well alright
I grant you
he was a fascist
ahem antisemitism the
er war and wall
I’m not defending them
but at least
you’ve got to admit
at least he
made the quatrains run on time
Knott spoke in a comedic voice about history’s traumas. He was idiosyncratic, both formal and informal, an oddball (I speak of the poems, having never met the man.) Later, I discovered D. Nurkse, Charles Simic, and the comedic female voices of Terri Ford, Jennifer Knox, and Sarah Sarai.
No comments:
Post a Comment