Can you believe it is April already? Spring is in full swing with all its promise of renewal and fresh new starts.
It is in that spirit that I went looking for some fresh new poetry to enjoy together. As it turns out, Jennifer Knox is not “new” to the world of poetry but she is “new” to me and maybe to you also.
Her writing style is delightful. It is fresh and edgy, and whether touched with satire or grim with sadness it pierces right through to the heart of the matter.
Here are a couple of small samples so you can see for yourself.
FAT CATS, SKINNY RATS
by Jennifer L. Knox
The Japanese feed peas to goldfish swimming upside down
which takes hours but the green balls get gas out which is why
they swim wonky, or so says my employer. That, and
the love rat he gave Frau Kunstkrank’s the toast of Stuttgart.
That, and he’d pay handsomely for a rare albino love rat—
a renowned French geneticist offered him one, then reneged
as my boss isn’t a certified testing lab. “Such credentials
are easily forged,” I mutter, slink home, unchain
the basement door and listen to the common ones—
sure to die unnamed, unsung—flee the reaping light.
and one more.....
One Man’s Trash
Right after Nothing but Gunpowder died
at the ripe age of rage, and piece by piece
of him had all shut down like bagpipes,
his wife, Forget It’s Forgotten, forgot how
he’d hollered on and on about the crops—
scrub plants, but their sap contained aspirin—
just pluck one and suck the stuff out.
Forget It’s Forgotten swore chewing on
the leaves put her to sleep better than beers.
Then the rain stopped. So she forgot the rain.
Lifetimes ago, Nothing had kissed her over
and over in the long house—she felt love in his lips
and hands and he kept on. Charcoal in Snow,
a lovely dancer, was watching them from behind
a curtain. She would always remember how seamless
they seemed—one thing wound of two—like rope—
up in each other’s pockets. Forget It’s Forgotten
had long forgotten all of this.
~
The first one made me smile (after I read it twice to make sure I considered all the nuances) but the second one? Ah, that made me really sad for the lost years of “Forget Its Forgotten,” a woman whose disenfranchisement echos in every line of this sad tome.
Jennifer has incredible range and ties it all together with an effortless that has the brilliance of one who makes the vastly complicated appear simplistic when it is in her capable hands. I recommend her books unreservedly.
Jennifer L. Knox's new book of poems, The Mystery of the Hidden Driveway, 
is available from Bloof Books. Her other books, Drunk by Noon and A Gringo Like Me, are also available through Bloof.
Jennifer can be contacted at http://jenniferlknox.com/index.html
See you next time Bluebell Readers and until then....enjoy reading every day!
Indie
1 comment:
amazing one, Indie.
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