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Rome in Rome
- GenresPoetry
64 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 1976
6 people want to read
About the author
Bill Knott
145 books36 followersBill Knott spent most of his youth in Chicago. He also taught poetry at Columbia College in Chicago in the early 1970s.
His first book was The Naomi Poems, published in 1968, under the pseudonym Saint Giraud. His many books of poetry include Auto-necrophilia, Love Poems To Myself, Rome in Rome, The Quicken Tree, Selected and Collected Poems, and Laugh At the End of the World: Collected Comic Poems 1969–1999.
He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2003. He is currently an associate professor of English at Emerson College in Boston.
In recent years, he has several times made all of his collected poems available for free online.
His first book was The Naomi Poems, published in 1968, under the pseudonym Saint Giraud. His many books of poetry include Auto-necrophilia, Love Poems To Myself, Rome in Rome, The Quicken Tree, Selected and Collected Poems, and Laugh At the End of the World: Collected Comic Poems 1969–1999.
He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2003. He is currently an associate professor of English at Emerson College in Boston.
In recent years, he has several times made all of his collected poems available for free online.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
August 28, 2020
The sixth book by American poet Bill Knott (1940-2014).
Poetry Review: Rome in Rome was written in 1976 by Bill Knott, an obscure American poet, but aren't most poets in America obscure? He made a small splash with his first two books, The Naomi Poems (1968) and Auto-Necrophilia (1971), and published three chapbooks between 1969 and 1974: Aurealism, Nights of Naomi, and Love Poems to Myself (which may be just a short book ...). Poems from all of those were included in his Selected and Collected Poems (1977). But Rome in Rome is the book where Bill Knott's later voice starts to be heard. He no longer appended his fictitious life dates, as on earlier books, and he stepped back from the full-on surrealism of Nights of Naomi. In that chapbook I felt I understood Knott about 10% of the time; with Rome in Rome I think I get him about 60% of the time. Here he combines surrealism with his own voice, to create images of an average man submerged in a surreal world not of his making or understanding. The poems are full of puns, wordplay, and rhyme, such as these lines from one dedicated to Carolyn Kizer:
Venus-proud feet up the sidewalk
Leave brief seas without a halt
And cowed I must follow to lick
Utter soleprints for my salt
Or these lines from "Fellatio Poem":
When
you come the clash
hyphenates
my ears.
Knott is willing to deal in obscenity, still willing to shock, but perhaps with more control, with more purpose. I hate to say this about Knott, but these poems seem more mature, as if he's begun growing into the poet he will become. Most of the poems are longer (even sonnets), and they have titles now (instead of most being titled "Poem"). The short poems, which were a strength in his earlier books, still occur here, but even those have matured:
This island has
Been discovered by a great explorer,
But fortunately,
News of the discovery
Has not reached here yet.
And this one:
POLAND THRU THE CENTURIES a touring
Exhibition of maps drawn
By German and Russian cartographers reveals
There never was a Poland.
Rome in Rome is Knott forming his voice, telling us about the absurdity of the world we live in, accessible and surreal. [3½★]
Poetry Review: Rome in Rome was written in 1976 by Bill Knott, an obscure American poet, but aren't most poets in America obscure? He made a small splash with his first two books, The Naomi Poems (1968) and Auto-Necrophilia (1971), and published three chapbooks between 1969 and 1974: Aurealism, Nights of Naomi, and Love Poems to Myself (which may be just a short book ...). Poems from all of those were included in his Selected and Collected Poems (1977). But Rome in Rome is the book where Bill Knott's later voice starts to be heard. He no longer appended his fictitious life dates, as on earlier books, and he stepped back from the full-on surrealism of Nights of Naomi. In that chapbook I felt I understood Knott about 10% of the time; with Rome in Rome I think I get him about 60% of the time. Here he combines surrealism with his own voice, to create images of an average man submerged in a surreal world not of his making or understanding. The poems are full of puns, wordplay, and rhyme, such as these lines from one dedicated to Carolyn Kizer:
Venus-proud feet up the sidewalk
Leave brief seas without a halt
And cowed I must follow to lick
Utter soleprints for my salt
Or these lines from "Fellatio Poem":
When
you come the clash
hyphenates
my ears.
Knott is willing to deal in obscenity, still willing to shock, but perhaps with more control, with more purpose. I hate to say this about Knott, but these poems seem more mature, as if he's begun growing into the poet he will become. Most of the poems are longer (even sonnets), and they have titles now (instead of most being titled "Poem"). The short poems, which were a strength in his earlier books, still occur here, but even those have matured:
This island has
Been discovered by a great explorer,
But fortunately,
News of the discovery
Has not reached here yet.
And this one:
POLAND THRU THE CENTURIES a touring
Exhibition of maps drawn
By German and Russian cartographers reveals
There never was a Poland.
Rome in Rome is Knott forming his voice, telling us about the absurdity of the world we live in, accessible and surreal. [3½★]
Displaying 1 of 1 review