Rome in Rome by Bill Knott (1978)

The third full book by American poet Bill Knott (1940-2014).

Poetry Review:  Bill Knott is 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. 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. [3.5 Stars]