Bill Knott

Bill Knott is the author of some of the America's finest, most original poetry. It is impossible to discuss post-modern American poetry without focusing on the singular vision of Bill Knott. A true maverick, a master revered by the finest poets of our time, Knott has been virtually ignored by both the American poetry establishment and the "avante garde." Among his many volumes of poetry are: The Quicken Tree, Outremer (Iowa Poetry Prize), Poems 1963-1988, Selected and Collected Poems, Rome in Rome, Love Poems to Myself, Nights of Naomi, Autonecrophilia, Aurealism, and The Naomi Poems. The selection below is from Knott's manuscript, Plaza de Loco.

Published on 05/4/2009

        Outfit your mirrors for departure
        though the rope-foliage looks nervous,
        hung from the harpstring hooks.

        Roll pause while the drugs pestle the place
        Sceptersweat, you are the grid, the
        grill on which I barbeque my b-b-gun.

        All nudes and rafters, upcusionings try
        to census-suck my neck's chaff.
        Then those flour envies the thrift of thorns?

        But see--see what sacrifice suite site got
        lawnmown out of me: watch it curate
        the only shelf not marked Self, that

        flowerpot filled with fruitjuice.
        The revolt that exaggerates its populace.

Copyright © Bill Knott, 2002 All Rights Reserved.