artwork by Star Black introduction by Mark Doty The third in Saturnalia Books Poet/Artist Collaboration Series $16.00 Paper, 978-0-9754990-4-7 2007 • 80 pp. 16 color illus. 6 3/4 x 9" •Reviews• •Excerpt• •About the Author and Artist• 
Reviews: "Excellent new poems by prolific surrealist, grouchy comic, underground hero and oddball formal virtuoso Bill Knott ("One of my pores creaks/ when I pass through it/.../ soon for the last time") join haunting, humorous collages by poet and artist Star Black..." —Publisher's Weekly "Still pure, his new poems are ice—refined, crystalline and sharp." —Brooklyn Rail "...Knott is one of the best poets writing in English... The poems here form thoughtful patterns." —John Cotter, Open Letters Monthly "This book is not to be read—it’s to be experienced." —Rigoberto Gonzalez, harriet: a blog from the poetry foundationPOEM
when the balloon bursts where does all the air that was inside go is it bound together briefly by the moisture of the human mouth that birthed it poor pouch of breath long expulsion of nothing you must dissipate too nor remain intact no matter how pantingly against the outer atmosphere you might try to secure your whoosh-hold and what an effort what heave and heft-work what strain of frame what rib-rift to have to lift to shift around all that oof and uff why strive and huff just to stave off death to survive 
to be a substance a stuff to live live as a pocket a cluster a cloud to maintain your interior mode I can understand that having once been contained in bouyance you'd want to retain that rare coherence you'd pray to stay a one to remain a unity an entity a whole in this unencased heaven but smatter of ghost how can you persist or save yourself when all us others disperse dissolve in draft little whistlestuff pathetic kisspuff flimsiest flak up into the sky goes two lungs worth of earth unstrung unloosed the exhaled soul of a boy a girl alloonaloft aloftalloon lostBill Knott is the author of eleven collections of poetry including, most recently, The Unsubscriber (FSG, 2004). He is currently an associate professor at Emerson College. Star Black is the author of five collections of poetry, most recently Ghostwood (New York Poet Series, 2003), as well as a photographer and visual artist. Mark Doty is the author of several books of poetry and three memoirs. He currently teaches at the University of Houston.
