Knowing Knott: Essays on an American Poet

Bill Knott, 1940-2014, was one of the most brilliant and iconoclastic American poets of our time, who liked to think of himself as an outsider even while publishing sixteen books in his lifetime and wielding enormous influence on at least two generations of poets. To his colleagues, students and friends he could be unpredictable, mercurial, reclusive or tenderly kind, but ever unforgettable. This volume gathers essays and reminiscences by some of the people who knew him, for whom knowing Knott was one of life s singular experiences. They include: Star Black, William Corbett, Stuart Dischell, Stephen Dobyns, Robert Fanning, Jonathan Galassi, DeWitt Henry, Steven Huff, Leigh Jejuga, Timothy Lieu, Tom Lux, Chad Reynolds, Peter Jay Shippey, John Skoyles and Michael Waters. Included here also is a short section of his visual art, which, while a lesser known side of his creative energy, is the work of a highly accomplished artist.