Under the One Granite Roof: poems for Walt Whitman
210 x 148 mm 72 pp colour cover, paperback, perfect bound
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About the book
Under the One Granite Roof: poems for Walt Whitman is Karen Knight's third collection of poetry - 'powerful in its portrayal of a remarkable individual, concise and punchy in its language and almost painfully vivid in its imagery.' The poems take the reader on a journey through Whitman's rich life, from the beginning of the American Civil War.
Under the One Granite Roof will be welcomed by those with an interest in American history, and is a confronting insight into the conditions on the battlefield. It will appeal to those who know Knight's previous work, which regularly appears in poetry journals. A valuable text for students of The American Civil War, it is suitable for secondary and tertiary levels, as well as the general reader.
'Knight writes with a flinty sharpness…through the astringent visions of Whitman and the light Knight shines on his work we see ourselves.' - Christopher Bantick, Sunday Tasmanian
Reviews
'In Under the One Granite Roof, Karen Knight creates a composite portrait of the man during his civil war years... Knight takes on topics such as the nature of war, the way in which art and life interact, physical attraction, the iconisation of history, the animal reality of what it means to be a human being, the simultaneous beauty, horror and permanent reality of patriotic death...' - from a review by Magdalena Ball
'Occasionally, very occasionally, I come across a collection of poems that makes me wish I had written it myself. This is one such collection, powerful in its portrayal of a remarkable individual, concise and punchy in its language, and almost painfully vivid in its imagery ....Karen Knight's approach to her art is exciting, adventurous and edgy. That she has managed to combine this with a deeply compassionate attitude is a remarkable feat.' - Tim Thorne, Cornford Press
'Read these poems then, not as truth but as possibility, not as record but as hope. As such they are grounded in the actual, mundane, full of action and inaction. They are in a word, real, and as the recreation of myth and history, correspondingly compelling.' - Jim Kacian, Red Moon Press, Winchester, USA
'a celebration of Whitman's extraordinary influence on American and international literature… Knight offers readers an insight into Whitman through verse which is both revealing and sympathetic. The collection is a kind of biography in vignettes of his life, preserved in poems.'
'Karen Knight's poems should come with a warning. She pens the kind of verse which will dismiss, for a while, just about every other thought…It is through the astringent visions of Whitman and the light Knight shines on his work that we see ourselves.' - Christopher Bantick, The Sunday Tasmanian
Author profile
Read Karen Knight's profile here.