Lynne Knight and Audio Saucepan

I first came across Lynne Knight's poems in the pages of Rattle. I have now read her fourth book, Again, and remain entranced by her writing. Her poems are accessible, but at the same time, breathtaking and melancholy. What she says feels impossibly true. She gazes out and tells it; she makes us human, real, important.  

The book starts with this "Prologue":

While we slept, such heavy rain swept past
it shook the last roses loose. They lay
smashed on the deck this morning, their petals
scattered like big white tears. I shouldn't say
a thing so sentimental. But there they were.
And you, my father, so long dead, why
should I not expect to find you everywhere,
reminding me how little will be left--
vague ache in my own daughter's heart
as she sweeps the steps after rain whose mercy
is all in the coming, the coming again.

That line: "I shouldn't say / a thing so sentimental" ... that gets me. It's a sort of opening up of the heart, a willingness to embarrass oneself. 

I will be reading one of Lynne Knight's other poems tomorrow night on my radio show, "Audio Saucepan." To get to speak her words between musical selections -- it is this that intrigues me about poetry, the sounds interspersed with sounds. The sounds of the words coming to life from the page.  

"Audio Saucepan"airs Sundays, 5-6PM (Mountain Time) on Santa Fe Public Radio KSFR 101.1FM with simultaneous access via the internet at www.ksfr.org.

Tomorrow's show (March 27) is "The End of Wind Episode,” and includes the poems “In the Space between Words Begin” (from Dark Archive, University of California Press) and “In a Time of Strife” by Lynne Knight (from Again, Sixteen Rivers Press); a quote by Max Neuhaus (from SOUND, edited by Caleb Kelly, MIT Press); and a wide variety of intriguing and unexpected music. Please tune in!