Night in the Shape of a Mirror, Poems by Lynne Knight
Night
in the Shape of a Mirror by Lynne Knight is a haunting sequence
of lyrics and narratives that explores the descent of a woman’s
life into twilight and then darkness. The poet’s music, muted
and graceful, guides us through the shadows.
Sample
Poems by Lynne Knight
“Some poems touch us because they take us where we have been before;
some poems take us where we have never been. And some poems take us
to places we know deeply but are afraid—or don’t know how—to
revisit. In her powerfully felt, intricately rendered poems of yearning,
loss, and redemption, Lynne Knight takes us everywhere—for, as
she tells us, ‘The soul is not housed. So where, in the calm after
rupture, might it not go?’”—Marcia Falk, author of
The Book of Blessings and The Song of Songs: Love Lyrics
from the Bible
“The poems in Night in the Shape of a Mirror are both
fierce and delicate in their observations and metaphoric extensions.
Lynne Knight handles the subject of her mother’s diminishment
with a sense of wonder, sorrow, and acute empathy. Knight reveals this
difficult journey with fluid grace and sensitivity. Her mesmerizing
poetic voice provides great spirit and music as counterpoint to the
tough truths. Her ability to weave the narrative of the body with the
narrative of the heart is simply stunning. This poetry is the real thing:
humane, original, and necessary.”—Kathleen Lynch, author
of Hinge
“These are extraordinary poems filled with the gorgeous and excruciating
truth of being mortal. Lynne Knight writes about fear and loss with
breathtaking courage, finding temporary glimmers of light even in the
midst of heartbreaking and inevitable darkness.”—Elizabeth
Rosner, author of The Speed of Light and Blue Nude
Lynne Knight was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and grew up in
Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York. She graduated from the University of Michigan
and from Syracuse University, where she was a fellow in poetry. After
living for several years in Canada, she returned to the States with
her daughter and taught high school English in Upstate New York before
moving to California in 1990. Her first collection, Dissolving Borders,
won a Quarterly Review of Literature prize in 1996 and was published
as part of its Contemporary Poets Series. A cycle of poems on Impressionist
winter paintings, Snow Effects, appeared from Small Poetry
Press as part of its Select Poets Series (2000). Her second full-length
collection, The Book of Common Betrayals, won the Dorothy Brunsman
Award from Bear Star Press in 2002. Her work has appeared in a number
of journals, including Beloit Poetry Journal, Kenyon Review, New
England Review, Ontario Review, Poetry, Poetry Northwest and Southern
Review. Her work has received Ithe Lucille Medwick Memorial Award
from the Poetry Society of America, the Theodore Roethke Prize from
Poetry Northwest, the Theodore Christian Hoepfner Award from
Southern Humanities Review, and a Special Award from Blue Unicorn. One
of her poems appears in Best American Poetry 2000, selected
by Rita Dove. A cycle of poems, Deer in Berkeley, won the 2003
Sow’s Ear Poetry Review Chapbook Contest. Life as Weather,
another cycle, won the Editor’s Prize from Two Rivers Review
in 2005. She lives in Berkeley and teaches writing part-time at
two Bay Area community colleges.
ISBN: 193345623X, 88 pages, $17.00