Laugh at the End of the World: Collected Comic Poems 1969-1999 (American Poets Continuum) [Paperback]

Bill Knott (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In 160 poems ranging from one-liners--"History" consists of two words: "Hope... goosestep"--to extended satires, Knott moves fluidly through a career's worth of poetic forms, employing everything from tanka to hendecasyllabics. Regardless of the form, however, this collection never swerves from the deliciously mordant sense of absurdity that first brought Knott attention in the '60s and '70s. While his work is often referential and straightforward ("The wind blows a piece of paper to my feet.// I pick it up.// It is not a petition for my death."), Knott intensifies his lines, at times, by torquing syntax and fusing words: "Knee-plenty take me. The topsheet teethes on us;/ the cunning foreskin heaps up nakedness." Following his forms, Knott's subject matter spans from put-downs of the work of Eugenio Montale and Galway Kinnell to a satire on a singles cruise and scathing send-ups of consumerism. But while full of brilliant vitriol, Knott's absurdity sometimes bleeds into inanity, and his over-the-top style can be wearying: "Fallen wart, comrade, hacked off by haste or/ the CIA, hey wart, whoa wart. Here you go,/ wartypoo, into this test-tube with you." Nonetheless, this book stands as much-needed retrospective of one the more distinctive and talented poets to cast himself out of the counter-cultural ferment. (June)

Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Review

(castration Envy #21) Does The Swordswallower Shit Plowshares?
(mural) (mondo) (nulfresco)
(plea, Hopeless, Sub Voce)
(sun, Sea, Rain) (rain Season) (port Townsend, Washington)
28-line Poem
3 A.m.
The Abstinent
Adulterer With No Mouth Amuses World
Advice From The Experts
After The Persian Gulf War: 1. Blitzbiz
After The Persian Gulf War: 2. The Outremerican Religion
After The Persian Gulf War: 3. Roadshow (via Crucis)
An Afternoon With Eugenio
Alphabetical Morning
Ancient Measures
Another Cold War Poem
Ant Dodger
Art Of The Caresses Or The Sphinx (castration Envy #36)
At The Crossroads
At The Museum This Week
At The Nixon Memorial
An Augur's Airs
Auto-renga
Barren Precinct
Beached
Beddybye
Best Way To Keep Your Ankles Awake? Snake Shoelaces
Breakfast
Brighton Rock By Graham Greene
The Building Of The Brazen Tower
Castration Envy #11
Castration Envy #12 (collected Portraits Of The Marchesa Casati)
Celebration
Childhood: The Offense Of History
Christmas At The Orphanage
Clarinet
Cocteau's Stars Importuned
A Comic Look At Damocles
Costarring Oscar Wilde As Madame Sosostris
Crapshoot
Credo
The Daily Rounds
The Day Rodin's Thinker Stopped Thinking And Other Poems
Dear Advice Columnist
Death
Death And The Mountain
Depressionism
En Passant
The Enemy
Escape Plan
Evolution R
Excerpts/vietnam: 1. Despair
Excerpts/vietnam: 2. Vietnam In Chicago
Excerpts/vietnam: 3. Reminder To Nuke The Other Side Of The Planet
The Fate
Fbi Kills Martin Luther King
Fear Of Domesticity: After Reading Plath And Sexton
Feeding The Sun
The Final Word
First
Framepoem
Funny Poem
The Getaway
The Golden Age
Golly Mountain Blues
Goodbye
Grant Proposal (category: Performance Arts)
Haibun: The Juggler To His Audience
Haiku
Heritage
The Heroes Crowd Each Other At The Gate
History
Hitler Skeleton Goldplated
Holy Shit
How I Lost My Pen-name
Human Escape Syndrome
The Hunger
I Should Hope So
Ideal Esthetic
Idol-alls
The Keeper
Lapse Poetica
Last Moments In The Masterpiece
Ledgelife
Lesson
Love, Hate, Life, Death, Mama, Water, Etc.
Male Menopause Poem
The Man Who Married His Checkout Lane
Menagerie Of The Aediles
Minor Poem
The Misunderstanding
Mitts And Gloves
Monopoly
More Best Jokes Of The Delphic Oracle
More Tips For Teens, Sels
More Useless Envy
Mother Teresa Treats Terrorists To Taffy
Movie-q's
My Favorite Word
My Mother's List Of Names
Myopia
No Androgyne Is An Archipelago
No-act Play
Nun Claims Most Snakes Too Serious To Make Good Bookmarks
An Obsolescent And His Deity (polyptych)
Our Catacomb's Next Martyr
An Outremerican Speaks
Passages
Pastime
The Patriots
Penny Wise
Perfection
Pholk Poem
Plaza De Loco
Poem Noir
Poem To Poetry
Poem!
Poemclone #4: His Life, His Fate (lament)
The President Of Descent (neocolonialism #16)
Priscilla, Or The Marvels Of Engineering
Prisoner
The Question
Quickie
'quote Unquote'
Racist Poem
Recap
Resumed Plea
Retort To Pasternak's Zhivago's Jesus
Rigor Vitus
Ritual
Rubberneck
The Ruins-reader
Sadak In Search Of The Waters Of Oblivion
Save As: Salvation
Say When
Secretary
Security
See Note First
Self-portrait Of The Poet As Hyena
Shame
Sleep
Song
Song Of Brasilia
The Sonnet In Ix
A Southern Run: 1. At My Grandparents' Grave, Chokenhole, Alabama
A Southern Run: 2. Disquisition At Knott's Funeral Home......
A Southern Run: 3. At My Grandchildren's Grave, Dunceville, Georgia
A Southern Run: 4. Accidie In Kilborn's Adult Arcade, Cuffs Cuffs...
A Southern Run: 5. At My Grandclone's Grave, Photomyopia........
A Southern Run: 6. After Fainting In Bill's Beauty Tique.......
Sudden Death Strikes Jet Set
Sudden Departure
Suicidal (or Simply Drunken) Thoughts On Being Refused A Guggenheim
Summer Action Features
Survival Of The Fittest Groceries
Tankatown
Temptrousseau
Throwbacks
To My Planetary Co-occupants
To Myself
To Outremerican Poets
To X
Treason
Trip
Two Epigrams From A Notebook Dated 1984: 1. The Ageing Epigrammatarian
Two Epigrams From A Notebook Dated 1984: 2. Plus Ca Change
Understudy (wagnerian)
Unredeemed
Unspeakable
Untitled
Unturn Arounded (medusa Says #4)
Vague Consoles
Wart-hound
Weltende Variation #?
Where
Wise Sayings
The Wishingwell Stanzas
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

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Product Details

• Paperback: 140 pages
• Publisher: BOA Editions Ltd.; 1st edition (May 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1880238845
• ISBN-13: 978-1880238844
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,165,698 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bill Knott's latest book may be his greatest..., August 18, 2000

By 

Evan Simeone (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Laugh at the End of the World: Collected Comic Poems 1969-1999 (American Poets Continuum) (Paperback)

This collection of poems includes some of Knott's greatest works, including many poems I hadn't read before. To any Bill Knott fans, this is a must have. And to anyone unfamiliar with his poetry, you should immediately check it out; it is a very unique combination of formalism, surrealism and futurism. These isms don't quite cover it, however. He seems to be looking at the entire English lexicon, from ultra-modern slang to archaicisms, when he composes his poems, choosing fresh and surprising combinations of words to fill every line.

Some of the best works in the book are his sonnets. (In the future I would love to see a collection of just his sonnets.) I didn't count them, but there are more than twenty sonnets in the collection and each is excellent. Knott uses the form of (usually) the Petrachan sonnet to make entirely fresh and moving poems again and again. One of the most impressive and entertaining of his sonnets is, "The Sonnet in ix" (which was first published, I believe, in an earlier, truly excellent, Bill Knott BOA edition book entitled, "The Quicken Tree"). The poem is a translation/parody of the Mallerme sonnet. Knott shows off his linguistic prowess by rhyming every line with "ix" without in anyway compromising the poem. It is a feat of shear brilliance.

Congrats to Bill Knott on a great collection of poetry and thank you to BOA for publishing it.

BUY THIS BOOK!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Easily the best poet writing today., March 29, 2001

By 

closet athlete (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Laugh at the End of the World: Collected Comic Poems 1969-1999 (American Poets Continuum) (Paperback)

Even Robert Pinsky says so, and, yet, astoundingly, every time I mention this man's name in mixed, literate company, people scratch their heads.

I'd like to respond to the accusation in the above PW review that his work "bleeds into inanity..." Maybe there's some truth in that, but so what? I find it both comforting and refreshing that words like "warty-poo" crop up in Knott's work. It's nice that in a medium that's so often sobre and bloated with self importance that there's someone out there who seems to be having FUN, for cripe's sake. These "inane" words and phrases add a little childish delight. What other poet will leave you moaning with heart break on one page and giggling with pleasure on the next.

I can't understand why more people who consider themselves "well-read" aren't familiar with Knott. I'm not well-read, and I've read all his books. What's your excuse? Huh?

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Knott Wrote All the Best Lines, January 25, 2001

By 

Nickle Nip "Nickle Nip" (Sioux City, IA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Laugh at the End of the World: Collected Comic Poems 1969-1999 (American Poets Continuum) (Paperback)

Just buy it! Don't ask questions. Buy everything that Knott has written. Read them all. When you're done, buy everything that James Tate has written. Read them all. If you've not run out of time, re-read them all. Then quit and think about things for a while.