Name: Bill Knott. Crime: sending poetry.
A while ago someone whom I have very little respect for (for various reasons) called me ‘The Dutch Bill Knott’. Now I’m not the most well-read man on the planet, as I spend most of my time contemplating eastern european and russian poetry, and i’m not very fast at that – in fact i severely distrust fast readers, who seem to me infected with a sort of rush-rash that can’t in any sort of way be combined with a true interest in someone’s work. I’m not naive – over the years I have learned that very few of the people who claim to have an interest in poetry actually do. So as I never heard of Knott but was compared to him I started checking the guy out. First I read some interview he did with someone. I like interviews, because it’s quite easy to tell from them if someone has something to say or is just another finger in the dreary vanilla-dyke of instant poetry. The interview showed a highly intelligent fellow, so i decided to order his book. Knott has been consistently publishing his collected works, since many many years, and all the time he improves it, adds to it, and republishes it.
Today the book arrived. A huge work of 476 pages filled to the brim with poetry. As I was doing my morning walk i was contemplating moving back to Mierlo contemporary, because i was worried about my daughters education and it seemed like the school refused her somehow – a matter that was solved later. Anyway, the book arrived, I opened it and the first poem I read was about a suicidal man who was about to jump unto the street, when he sees an ant walking before his feet, after which he starts to wonder wether he should jump on the street or jump on the ant. And as ‘Mierlo’, the town i was thinking about, means ‘Ant Town’ I found that peculiar.
I read for about two hours and was amazed at the scope and the brilliance of this work. I might be a slow reader, but I’m not a slow decision maker – i felt this ranks amongst the best poetry I have ever read.
Strangely, however, Bill Knott is not ‘well received’ in so-called ‘literary circles’ in the US at all. He got tuns of negative reviews, very aggressive negative reviews, and reading his poetry such aggression is really inexplicable. So as I’m slowly starting to call myself a ‘philosopher’ more than a ‘poet’ I felt it sort as my obligation to spend a few thoughts on that.
Bill Knotts crime is that he sends poems. Well, sure, everyone does, but what you do not understand, perhaps: there are hidden ‘rules’ in the literary scene that dictate how you should ‘behave’ in order to be granted success. One of these ‘rules’ is that you can never show the rejections. It’s all about playing fair weather, and hiding the real ‘map’ of the world of literature, which is composed of both acceptance and rejections. Now, what Bill Knott actually did was being completely open about everything. He simply made the rejections part of his work. He immediately was treated by the community as a complete parasite. Granted, a lot of the bad reviews are simply by people who have no significant talent and have no business having an opinion about poetry in the first place. But what is truly interesting is this: we live in a society where a man can be considered a criminal just for sending poetry, and being honest about the rejections. Sounds absurd? Well, it is.
It’s really all about the Victorian qualities of the publishing world. It’s filled to the brim with etiquette, hidden rules, and snakes, absolute snakes. The sad part is that this giant industry has managed to completely destroy any sort of true canonization mechanism. We see this in the music industry: there is simply no way any new artist can make it into any ‘Canon’, no matter how brilliant he is. As long as this ‘industry’ is there we will never see a new contemporary Mozart or Bach: only the most pious, the most mediocre, the most diplomatic sort of suckups are allowed into its upper echelons, and by the time they get there the minute bit of talent they originally had vanished.
In one of the early poems in this book, which resembles more of a ‘Magnum Opus’ than anything else I’ve seen in poetry (well maybe Nazim Hikmet’s ‘human landscapes’ has simular scope) Knott calls himself ‘The Mourner’ and the poem makes it clear he has become the spirit of this death-mirror to such extent that we now all crazily depend on him for any idea of justice. It’s not a joke – I can feel Knott around. He really is the mourner, and you, reader of this article: if you have any courage left in your soul, then buy the works of this magnificent poet, that in any decent sort of society would have been lauded and revered a long, long time ago.
Site where you can order ‘One of a kind’ books Bill makes in person
A new ‘selected poems’ that appeared today, which can be ordered on Amazon
6 Responses to Name: Bill Knott. Crime: sending poetry.
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Books
Coming soon (May 2013) - WWW - The Collected Works of Martinus Benders
"I can already say it's a masterpiece.
A hallucinogenic, possibly explosive mix of brilliant poetry, bizar inventions and clownish attacks on the entire world of literature'" Alexis de Roode
"My Latino girlfriend sees me read, giggle, and read on frantically and said: you look like someone being attacked by a butterfly' - No Zero
"I am grinning like a boy touching his first breasts. Its the personal touch that does the trick' - Mark Opfer-Rutting
"Martinus Benders reveals himself as a masterful satirist. It's, through all of its layers, an extraordinarily lurid book. Willem Thies
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Might check him one out!
“He immediately was treated by the community as a complete parasite.”
Just followed some links to what Silliman has to say about Knott, community and rejection:
http://ronsilliman.blogspot.nl/2007/01/bill-knott-three-times-in-past-week.html
This suggests that the parasitical treatment might have been in part self-staged, which wouldn’t surprise me, given that that’s often what poets do to themselves – some seem to have a positive instinct for being, or rather sensing themselves to be, unjustly neglected.
And – hm – if someone is published with FS&G… then you really have to take the idea of rejection with a truckload of salt.
I disagree with the above – the real issue here is exactly what Sillimans dubs as a positive, but its really a negative: poetry is a community. One only has to have an inch of life experience to know that humans, when they function as groups, always create scapegoats. As Knott received an incredible amount of reviews i cannot describe in any other fashion than ‘vile and incompetent’ from supposedly ‘respected sources’ the idea that ‘the community’ would somehow be positive and the autonom individual ‘the negative’, a predominant ideology since the 50′s, is really the cause of the problem, not it’s ‘solution’ as Silliman thinks. As I made clear in my article, once something turns into a giant industry – it always was an industry, but it used to be a small one – from 200 poets to 10.000 and you have a considerable industry, which automatically will have as its single goald to completely falsify the very idea of critique and the possibility of an industry-independant hierarchy. We see that very clearly in the music industry: The industry doesnt give a shit about talent anymore since the 90′s. Its now all about marketing. Literature lasted just a tad bit longer, but you cannot deny that the same thing is going on there. Sillimans words might be or might not be of good cheer, the actual problem (overproduction, mediocrity, lack of decent critique, marketing, lobbyism) arent adressed much at all, everyone plays nice weather, nobody wants to put up a decent fight. Community? Fuck community. There’s too much community. We need a Canon, not a community.
“This suggests that the parasitical treatment might have been in part self-staged”
Really? Did Knott not invite himself to all those literary juries? Did Knott not win any prizes because he didn’t like his own books? The mental attitude you’re exhibiting here is what I call ‘hivemind apologism’. The idea is that there is a ‘cloud’ in which no one is personally responsible (‘the community’) that is the designated ‘positive’ which can set the agenda for everyone and anyone blacklisted by it is a masochist, a pervert, a forgettable entity.
Let’s face it: Knott just doesnt ‘fit in’, like Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela and other places ‘don’t fit in’ with this new ‘Hive Mind’.
The argument you’re exhibiting here is exactly the same argument we keep hearing against Iran: they are the cause of their own isolation.
Are they really? Or is their system just a little too different and does the Hive Mind not tolerate it?
Whomever reads Knotts personal history knows that the man has been plagued by a past full of orphanages, mental institutions, and other rough and unfortunate events.
Anyone who claims that any person can go through that and arise without any damage to their personal self-evaluation system is really the one who belongs in the nuthouse.
Now, what you and Silliman are *really* telling me is that it’s ‘sort of okay’ to treat someone like Bill this way as long as we ‘just archive his work somewhere, in some archival poetical graveyard’. Because what you guys are criticizing is NOT the community: you thought Bill is a better target. He’s been different. He doesn’t have the right mental setup. So its really okay we never ask him for any juries, and he never won any substantial prices even being one of the best poets, because, well, he really did all of this to himself, no?
Yeah, right. We don’t need your ‘new community’, pal. We don’t need 10.000 lousy poets for the sake of egalism, and a typical ‘collector’ as Silliman as the top baboon. What we do really need is restore the intelligent people back to the top, the true poets, and Bill is one of them. And no, I don’t think he should suffer all his life and then be archived by the collectors, while people way less talented than him wallow in the spotlights for pegging the right ‘attitudes’.
Maybe you can also explain why Frank Koenegracht has never won any substantial price or was never asked for any jury? Because he’s one of the top 5 Dutch poets of last 50 years, but what I hear from people are things like ‘he’s a little insane’ and other gossips. Is that your idea of ‘community literature’, mister? It reminds me of a dreary, suburban ghetto full of gerontocratic old poops. It would explain why your last review of my book was at least for 50% filled up with such community gossips.
Funny, but everyone complaining about hive mind etc are just people who couldn’t get in so are creating their own hive minds
Yes, it’s also funny that people censored by the government and put in prison make their own little communities there, haha, what a bunch of losers!