Bill Knott (poet) explained

Bill Knott
Birth Name:William Kilborn Knott
Birth Date:February 17, 1940
Birth Place:Carson City, United States
Occupation:Writer, poet

William Kilborn Knott (17 February 1940 – 12 March 2014) was an American poet.

Life

Born in Carson City, Michigan, US, Knott received his MFA from Norwich University and studied with John Logan in Chicago.[1]

His first collection of poems, The Naomi Poems: Corpse and Beans, was published in 1968 under the name Saint Geraud, a fictional persona whose backstory included a suicide two years prior to the publishing.[2] [3] The Naomi Poems was well received and brought him to the attention of such poets as James Wright, who called him an "unmistakable genius."[4] The Naomi referenced in the poems was fellow poet, Naomi Lazard, Bill Knott's muse in his earlier poems.

Knott taught at Emerson College for more than 25 years, published many books of poetry, and was awarded the Iowa Poetry Prize and a Guggenheim fellowship.[5]

Work

Early in his career, Knott was noted for writing unusually short poems, some as short as one line, and untitled.[6] Later he became interested in metrical verse forms and syllabics. He was not a believer in poetic "branding" and throughout his career refused to restrict himself to one particular school or style of writing. His poetry's subjects, themes and tones were also wide-ranging. His work often displayed a wry, self-deprecating sense of humor, and he was critical of what he saw as an epidemic of humorlessness in contemporary American poetry.[7] Poets who cite him as an influence include Thomas Lux, Mary Karr, Stephen Dobyns, Denise Duhamel, Denis Johnson, and Janaka Stucky. One of Johnson's novels, Already Dead: A California Gothic, was inspired by Knott's "Poem Noir."[8] [9]

A selection of his work, I Am Flying Into Myself: Selected Poems, 1960-2014, was compiled by Thomas Lux and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in February 2017.[10] [11] [12]

Knott was also a visual artist, known for giving away booklets of his poetry with hand-painted covers.[13]

Bibliography

Books published by Bill Knott include:[14] [15]

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Obituaries William Kilborn Knott. gephartfuneralhome.com. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20140407132056/http://www.gephartfuneralhome.com/fh/obituaries/obituary.cfm?o_id=2456101&fh_id=12447. 2014-04-07.
  2. Web site: Adam Travis . 2005 . An Interview with Bill Knott . January 9, 2009 . October 20, 2019 . https://web.archive.org/web/20191020074852/http://www.bookslut.com/features/2005_02_004302.php . dead .
  3. Book: Saint Geraud, Foreword by Paul Carroll . 1968 . The Naomi Poems: Corpse and Beans . Big Table Publishing Company . Chicago . 6–14.
  4. Book: Wright. James. A Wild Perfection: The Selected Letters of James Wright. 2008. Wesleyan University Press. 9780819568724. 424.
  5. News: Marquard. Bryan. Bill Knott, 74; widely admired as poet, Emerson professor. 18 December 2014. The Boston Globe. March 31, 2014.
  6. Web site: Knott. Bill. COLLECTED SHORT POEMS 1960-2008. billknottarchive.com. 19 December 2014.
  7. Web site: Arnold. Robert. An Interview with Bill Knott. Memorious. 19 December 2014. June 2006.
  8. Book: Johnson. Denis. Already Dead: A California Gothic. registration. 1998. Harper Perennial. 978-0060929091. Author's Note. It is...a particular pleasure to thank the poet Bill Knott, from whose genius springs the plot of this tale..
  9. Web site: Publishers Weekly . Janaka . Stucky . Book Review: I Am Flying Into Myself: Selected Poems, 1960-2014 .
  10. The New Yorker . Bill Knott's Anti-Career of Guerrilla Poetry . Dan . Chiasson . Dan Chiasson . April 3, 2017 .
  11. Web site: The New York Times . December 19, 2016 . The Year in Reading .
  12. Web site: Los Angeles Times . February 13, 2017 . Craig . Teicher . Bill Knott's unclassifiable poetry is collected in 'I Am Flying Into Myself' .
  13. Web site: Cotter. John. From the Archives: Two From Saturnalia Books. Open Letters Monthly. 18 December 2014. 2011.
  14. Book: Hamilton , Ian . 1996 . The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry in English . registration. . Oxford . 279. 978-0-19-280042-8 .
  15. Web site: Books of the poet: Bill Knott. PoemHunter. 2007-04-13.

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