Stephen Knight

Stephen Knight teaches creative writing at Goldsmith’s, University of London. His collections of poems include Flowering Limbs, Dream City Cinema and Drizzle Mizzle Downpour Deluge.

Poem: ‘Our Undersea World’

Stephen Knight, 1 September 1983

The trick (he tells me) is to sleep till one  O’clock then watch the television.In the corner of his murky bedroom  There is always a swirl of colour:

T-shirts; smoke threading from an ashtray to  The light; shoes; anemones thrivingOn the wreck of the Torrey Canyon; our  Chancellor raising the Budget box.

Poem: ‘Laughing Gas’

Stephen Knight, 3 May 1984

        I am timing the Fire Doors for something to do;     They swing alarmingly! Since the Management reduced Our use of electricity I walk the corridors         Trailing my fingertips the length of the wall.

        I think of adjectives to sum this...

Poem: ‘The Gift’

Stephen Knight, 19 July 1984

My parcel was delivered to the college Thoroughly packaged, like an only child ... I tear my father’s beautifully-written note (Please acknowledge receipt, Love Mum & Dad) Then fold the wrapping for possible re-use. A breeze laps the posters crusting the wall; Like lily pads, they compete to face the light.

I bump into Philip inside the Lodge. He asks to see the gift – another...

Poem: ‘A British Summer’

Stephen Knight, 2 April 1998

My boredom chock-a-block with furniture – the desk in bits, the sofa’s cushions cluttering the bed, drawers shoved beneath the dresser – I stare at Wimbledon while listening to the man restretch then clean the carpets in two rooms; suds rumbling in their drum, the smell of pine detergent creeping up to me.

Two hours of plucky Brits, mauve clouds, the covers on, or grim-faced...

Poem: ‘So Early in the Year’

Stephen Knight, 1 April 1999

Presumably the whole point is that there should be no continuum: of anything. That failures of memory are but a proof of a living organism’s subordination to the laws of nature. No life is meant to be preserved.

Joseph Brodsky, In a Room and a Half

‘I really ought to stop climbing trees,’ you said, nipping the filter off another low-tar cigarette then settling your arm...

In the 1964 film Robin and the Seven Hoods, when someone compares ‘Robbo’ (Frank Sinatra) to Robin Hood, one of the gangsters asks: ‘Who’s Robin Hood?’ And another...

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Just Good Friends

Caroline Moorehead, 2 February 1984

When a Mafia suspect called Joseph Miceli Crimi led police, in March 1981, to an office safe in Castiglion Fibocchi, near Arezzo, which contained the names of prominent Italians and documents...

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