Carol Lynne Knight is not only a poet, but also a documentary filmmaker, of her own life.
Not just a literary lyricist, but a writer who is willing to hold up a mirror to examine the parts most of us keep in the closet, the memories we have hidden away, the historical fragments of ourselves so closely guarded that it might take a detective to find the key. pieces.
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And in his new poetry collection, “If I Go Missing” (Fernwood Press, April 25, 2022, paperback, $17), Knight does just that when he enlists the help of two dozen much-loved detectives, including Sherlock. Homes. , Detectives Kurt Wallander, Veronica Mars, Maverick, Columbo, and the folks at CSI and NYPD Blue.
Knight will speak and read the book at 6:30 pm on Tuesday, September 13 at Midtown Reader, 1123 Thomasville Road.
Used almost as “stand-ins” in her own search for the parts of her life that lay flickering somewhere between sunlight and shadow, Knight has employed the witty trope of television and literary detectives whom she asks: ” If I disappear…” How will you find me?
Beginning many of the 47 poems in the collection with a kind of invitation: “If I am accused…”; “If my car was found abandoned…”; If you lose me in New York City…”; “If I get arrested…” Knight then provides “clues,” “traces” of her experiences as the ex-wife of a South Florida cop, her infidelities, and the emotional adventures of her own life, sometimes reckless and times in search of direction.
In the exquisite language Knight is known for in her other books of poetry, “A Fretted Terrain, Like Mars” and “Quantum Entanglement,” here she enlists the help of “professionals” to rediscover and redefine the person she seems to have Dyed. she lost.
With some poems full of humor and irony, others screaming with rage, and others heartbreaking, there is lavish language and enough metaphors and similes to satisfy the most lyrical reader: “…the fog-stained bridge lights”; “the sun… a silent lemon squeezing over the long, low bridge…”; “Forget her fake kiss: a dreamy snake slithering in the lobby”; and the devastating, “And six weeks later, (fallen) into a wedding dress, a marriage, an epic of habits, with a shelf for every passion, a jar for every angry word, until betrayal replaced ritual, until the lament became a hollow and perfect silence.”
Knight’s life is currently drenched in words. She is co-director of Anhinga Press. She has edited and designed over 100 literary publications by nationally renowned poets.
Knight is featured in the highly praised photography exhibition, “Women Among Us,” which was shown at the Lemoyne Gallery, and is scheduled to go on display at the Florida Capitol, while also designing its accompanying book.
He is a Fellow of the Hambidge Center for the Arts and Bowers House, and his work has appeared in dozens of magazines and literary collections. She has exhibited drawings, ceramics, sculpture, and digital images in the eastern United States. And in other lives, she has worked as an art teacher, potter, videographer, copywriter, and graphic designer.
But lest a reader stray from this elegant trove of poems touching on dark themes, rest assured that from the blurring virtuosity of time and space in “Riding Shotgun” and the defiant catharsis of “Lipstick,” a triumphant ending emerges. and completely “found” voice in the poem, “Just Rising,” a statement from a woman who needs absolutely no outside help to get her bearings. And who invites Sherlock and Watson to smoke a cigarette.
If you go
What: Carol Lynne Knight reading “If I Go Missing” alongside local writers Mary Jane Ryals, Melanie Rawls, Michael Trammel, Rick Campbell, Anne Meisenzahl and Donna Decker to celebrate Knight’s 75th birthday.
When: 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, September 13
Where: Midtown Reader, 1123 Thomasville Road
Marina Brown can be reached at [email protected] Brown is the author of the 2020 RPLA Gold Medal-winning novel, “The Orphan of Pitigliano,” and an award-winning volume of poetry, “The Leaf Does Not Believe It Will Fall.”
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