Is Knot by John M. Bennett (Luna Bisonte Prods 2021)
Is Knot by John M. Bennett, Luna Bisonte Prods. Columbus, Ohio, USA. 2021. 177 pages
Review by De Villo Sloan
Generalizations in vispo reviews can be misleading & manipulative. Sometimes they can be dangerous.
So I will begin with a generalization rooted in my subjectivity: During the previous plague year (2020) visual poets seemed compelled to present a position - even if subtle or cryptic - on asemic writing, which they wove into their books, which were released at a relatively frantic pace. Thus 2020 might have been the year of an asemic-vispo nascence: The year vispo appropriated asemic writing. Possibly.
John M. Bennett has little if nothing at all to do with current asemic vispo debates, even if he is the populist "Godfather of [Global] Vispo" & has been reigning for not years but decades. Bennett's newest book, Is Knot, is a collection of what I will call due to a need for mutual understanding "traditional [text-centered] lyric poetry." Is Knot is beautifully produced with book design by C Mehrl Bennett.
While newer & more general audiences will not quench their thirst for vispo novelty nor asemic authenticity in the pages of Is Knot, they will discover - & Bennett's longtime readers will again be affirmed - that he is a lyric poet fully equal in accomplishment to his most lauded contemporaries. Is Knot is a collection revealing John M. Bennett at his poetic best. The book includes writing in English, Spanish & vispo combinations thereof.
This is not (no pun intended) to suggest Is Knot is a book of only traditional lyric poetry. The collection contains a healthy representation of the image-text discourse ("visual writing" as critic Tom Hibbard calls it) Bennett has helped define & is known for, including his calligraphy (which others have classified as asemic) & composition with found material.
From Is Knot by John M. Bennett (Luna Bisonte Prods 2021)
Is Knot showcases Bennett's hard-earned mastery & synthesis of Modernist poetics, especially Louis Zukofsky. (You also have triadic forms developed by William Carlos Williams.) Bennett is more often associated with DaDa & (of course) concrete poetry. His language-centered poems tend (again generalities are dangerous) toward the extreme precincts of non-linearity, disruption, wordplay & classic Brechtian alienation effects, among other tropes.
Is Knot offers new possibilities for the postavant pomo lyric, similar to Rae Armantrout's achievement in re-forging the meta-language chains of L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E into highly individualized poems of great beauty & expression (another problematic idea in terms of the postavant). Poetically, I believe the most important contribution of Is Knot is within its lyric structures.
Pieces using a three-line stanza, sometimes in patterns of three, work very well in Is Knot & are similar to numerical & word-count forms Zukofsky invents in the later books of A. Using a relatively traditional form, even if it is of his own invention, serves Bennett well & he rises to the occasion. Here is a transcription of "bird" (167) by John M. Bennett from Is Knot:
bird
cheep leg or leap
be hhind thought
negck yr chow
der's soaked rope
walk on talk on
sees the clay yr
deep swallow
stays ,its foggy
thhroat stun fllaps
From Is Knot by John M. Bennett (Luna Bisonte Prods 2021)
bird (some notes)
cheep leg or leap (wordplay: chirp, cheap; rhyme)
be hhind thought
negck yr chow (chow/der = hinge line break)
der's soaked rope (rope = knot)
walk on talk on
sees the clay yr
deep swallow (deep = rhyme) (wordplay: bird swallow)
stays ,its foggy
thhroat stun fllaps
"bird" presents a high-degree of indeterminacy - no surprise in this mode of discourse. The Jim Leftwich term "pansemic" is, in fact, a useful descriptor when approaching Bennett's work. "bird" can be read as a classic lyric scenario of "the Poet" contemplating a bird in a foggy, lakeside or seaside location.
The classic Western subjective/object binary pattern emerges & receives serious contemplation & perceptual processing. Is Knot adds a new step in the evolution of the avant garde & post avant. The wordplay & image juxtapositions provide a depth of complexity.
In addition, to the tercets, Bennett includes a number of pieces using anaphora (repetition) & shows himself a master of the great Bardic poetics of Blake, Whitman & Ginsberg; in reality, this should come as no surprise). These poems, in terms of tone & imagery, are similar in achievement to work by Phillip Lamantia. Here is an excerpt from "headless form" (159) by John M. Bennett in Is Knot:
in the owl of the form a breast returns
in the heart of the form an eye returns
in the ash of the form a lung returns
in the ink of the form a rain returns
in the beast of the form a shoe returns
in the skin of the form a cave returns
in the face of the form a son returns....
In terms of disclosures, I have been reviewing John M. Bennett books for over a decade & I have been following his work since the 1980s. Also I am very familiar with the later works of
Robert Creeley where the poet begins working in form, many of theme similar or derived
from Zukofsky & related others.
So Bennett's similar uses in form are of interest to me & should be to others interested in these poetries. "Otherstream" lit has produced writing & art we are now only beginning to appreciate. Is Knot is an important contribution to this library.
