The Persistence of Longing, by Lynne Knight
We congratulate Lynne Knight whose book, The Persistence of Longing, was a finalist for the Northern California Book Award in Poetry as one of the best works by a northern California poet published in 2016.
Congratulations to Lynne for the feature of her poem Survival on Poetry Daily. The poem is from The Persistence of Longing.
Congratulations to Lynne for the feature of her poem Dream Circuit on Verse Daily. The poem is from The Persistence of Longing.
Praise for The Persistence of Longing:
I love these poems, love how they sweep me along, sweep me up into the arms of the kind of longing that seems unsayable, untranslatable, impossible to describe in any language, with any words—the words turning back into breath, as this poet says, as she creates the sense of that longing, itself, in words, in these sometimes-breathless lines, sometimes against the restraint of form, the sweet ache of rhyme, creating that sense of urgency that’s so like desire, itself, and the sense of danger that infuses even the deepest pleasure, especially the deepest pleasure. I’ve never read poems that seem to me more accurate about love and desire and sexual relationships and their almost-inevitable shattering—darkly gorgeous and expertly-crafted poems, with a white-hot lyric intensity and a narrative pull that becomes cumulative, an erotic veering toward doom. And yet, the persistence of longing is the life force, too, refusing to exhaust itself: How could anything in the universe be undying / when everything rushed forward, trailing light?
—Cecilia Woloch, author of Carpathia
Congratulations to Lynne for the feature of her poem Survival on Poetry Daily. The poem is from The Persistence of Longing.
Congratulations to Lynne for the feature of her poem Dream Circuit on Verse Daily. The poem is from The Persistence of Longing.
Praise for The Persistence of Longing:
I love these poems, love how they sweep me along, sweep me up into the arms of the kind of longing that seems unsayable, untranslatable, impossible to describe in any language, with any words—the words turning back into breath, as this poet says, as she creates the sense of that longing, itself, in words, in these sometimes-breathless lines, sometimes against the restraint of form, the sweet ache of rhyme, creating that sense of urgency that’s so like desire, itself, and the sense of danger that infuses even the deepest pleasure, especially the deepest pleasure. I’ve never read poems that seem to me more accurate about love and desire and sexual relationships and their almost-inevitable shattering—darkly gorgeous and expertly-crafted poems, with a white-hot lyric intensity and a narrative pull that becomes cumulative, an erotic veering toward doom. And yet, the persistence of longing is the life force, too, refusing to exhaust itself: How could anything in the universe be undying / when everything rushed forward, trailing light?
—Cecilia Woloch, author of Carpathia
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Lynne Knight, a former fellow in poetry at Syracuse University, taught high school English in Upstate New York, then moved to California where she taught part-time at San Francisco Bay Area community colleges and began writing poetry again. She now devotes herself full-time to writing. She is the author of four full-length poetry collections, three of them prize winners, and four chapbooks, three of them also prize winners. Her work has appeared in a number of journals, including Kenyon Review, Poetry, and The Southern Review. Her other awards and honors include publication in Best American Poetry, the Prix de l’Alliance Française 2006, a PSA Lucille Medwick Memorial Award, the 2009 Rattle Poetry Prize, and an NEA grant.
Please visit her website. Available Terrapin Bookstore Amazon B&N |