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Reposted by Karl Knights

Poetry Foundation @poetry.foundation · 28/09/2026

Karl Knights with "I’m the Passenger, Giving Wrong Directions on Purpose" featured in the September issue of POETRY. #PoemoftheDay Read or listen to the poem: bit.ly/4d6kv9L

Green graphic with white text: Nothing too far out. Three minutes here and there.
Keep left at the village’s one Georgian window.
Dawdle along Priory Road, backtrack to Angel Lane.
Blame it on winter, no streetlights for over an hour.
Once we clipped a small deer, saw him hobble back
into the trees. For a second I wished we’d hit him
full on. No one hurt. Car damaged, not a write-off.
Shattered headlights, blood trail across cat’s eyes. In green text under a green pegasus is the name Karl Knights.

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Karl Knights @inadarkwood.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

A lovely surprise on a slogging Monday morning to find that one of my poems is the Poem of the Day over at the @poetry.foundation website. Thank you to the editors 🙏

A screenshot from the Poetry Foundation website, showing Karl's poem, 'I'm the Passenger, Giving Wrong Directions on Purpose' as the poem of the day. The text preview reads, 'Nothing too far out. Three minutes here and there.
Keep left at the village’s one Georgian window.
Dawdle along Priory Road, backtrack to Angel Lane...'

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Karl Knights @inadarkwood.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

25 years later, this poem by Wisława Szymborska (in Clare Cavanagh's translation) is as wrenching as ever. That last verse has been in my head for years. (Content note for the poem re: suicide)

Photograph from September 11

By Wisława Szymborska
Translated By Clare Cavanagh

They jumped from the burning floors—
one, two, a few more,
higher, lower.

The photograph halted them in life,
and now keeps them
above the earth toward the earth.

Each is still complete,
with a particular face
and blood well hidden.

There’s enough time
for hair to come loose,
for keys and coins
to fall from pockets.

They’re still within the air’s reach,
within the compass of places
that have just now opened.

I can do only two things for them—
describe this flight
and not add a last line.

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Karl Knights @inadarkwood.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

So thrilled (and pleasantly flabbergasted) to say I have three poems in the new issue of Poetry! 😱Thank you to the editors for the gift of letting me carry a little seen side of home into the magazine's pages. An absolute dream publication for me! www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazi...

poetryfoundation.org

September 2026

Poems, readings, poetry news and the entire 110-year archive of POETRY magazine.

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Reposted by Karl Knights

Alison Brackenbury @abrackenbury.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

'I Have a Literal Mind'... 'A teacher says take a seat, I pick up the chair and walk out.' I rediscover the poems of Karl Knights @inadarkwood.bsky.social- frequently funny, & sharply illuminating. 'Kin' is available from the Poetry Business @poetrybusiness.bsky.social

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Karl Knights @inadarkwood.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

A favourite poem, by Bruce Snider. Farewell, Dolly.

Ode to a Dolly Parton Drag Queen
By Bruce Snider

She lip-syncs “Hello God,” then “9 to 5.”
She struts. Or does she fly? Like the soul,
a rhinestone, she tells us, will never die.
She’s a blush-pink Bible. Patched together,
she’s a cosmic doll. Mirror of a mirror,
she winks, her face the only face. Anchors
of abundance, her breasts are the news—
more is more is more. A baptismal font,
a witch-walk down the last dirt road,
she’s hillbilly blood on a silk bandana. Marilyn
or Medusa? Caked lipstick on a flatbed truck.
She’s Styrofoam in a cowgirl case. Starlight
on a stage. She’s all eyeliner. She will not scare.
She’s the endless tease of her acrylic hair.

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Karl Knights @inadarkwood.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

How is Suffolk doing under Reform? Well, I was at a local pride recently and noticed that all the little shops that usually have pride flyers in their windows didn't have any this year. I asked why, and it turns out local shops had been threatened with firebombing if they displayed a tiny rainbow.

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Karl Knights @inadarkwood.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

Here's a poem by the late Brian Patten that I return to every time Father's Day rolls around. It's taken from Armada, far and away his best book.

Stepfather

I cannot pick him out the air,
he is not there,

nor out the soil,
the worm was not his style.

I cannot pick him out the fire,
there’s not a cinder’s worth left.

So why do I still feel bereft
when no love was lost?

Perhaps for what might have been
had he not been.

In the coffin he seems a replica,
a terrible dummy,

still wreaking havoc,
still beating up the living.

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Karl Knights @inadarkwood.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

So, it turns out this nugget of local queer history will cost $568 (about £423 or so). Alas, I had no luck in finding anything in the way of funding pots to help independent researchers in the humanities, stateside or here. If you know of something, I'd appreciate hearing about it.

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Karl Knights @inadarkwood.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

Just stopping by to note my near total despair at not only finding that my town voted Reform, but also finding that Reform have now taken over my county's council. Jfc, Suffolk.

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Karl Knights @inadarkwood.bsky.social · 04/05/2026

People of Bluesky, there's a bit of local queer history I've been writing around for some time, and it turns out a hefty, 400 page piece of it is held at Princeton. I can access it, yay, but it's $2 a page, which at 400 pages adds up! Anyone know any tiny research funding pots, or a Princeton pal?

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Karl Knights @inadarkwood.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

Apropos of nothing, poets writing about family estrangement, where are you? I remain puzzled by my inability to find poets writing about estrangement, whether in long form or in just a single poem across a career. Recommendations welcome!

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Karl Knights @inadarkwood.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

Happy birthday to Seamus Heaney, perhaps the poet who I know best on the page. Here's a poem from Seeing Things

An August Night, by Seamus Heaney

His hands were warm and small and knowledgeable.
When I saw them again last night, they were two ferrets,
Playing all by themselves in a moonlit field.

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Karl Knights @inadarkwood.bsky.social · 14/02/2026

What better Valentine's poem than this gem from the much missed Thomas Lux? I was lucky enough to hear him read it, and I can still hear his voice in my ear when I read the poem to myself. 'Love is like this at the bone, we hope[...] all sore and dumb and dangerous, ignited, blessed'

I Love You Sweatheart

A man risked his life to write the words.
A man hung upside down (an idiot friend
holding his legs?) with spray paint
to write the words on a girder fifty feet above
a highway. And his beloved,
the next morning driving to work…?
His words are not (meant to be) so unique.
Does she recognize his handwriting?
Did he hint to her at her doorstep the night before
of "something special, darling, tomorrow"?
And did he call her at work
expecting her to faint with delight
at his celebration of her, his passion, his risk?
She will know I love her now,
the world will know my love for her!
A man risked his life to write the words.
Love is like this at the bone, we hope, love
is like this, Sweetheart, all sore and dumb
and dangerous, ignited, blessed - always,
regardless, no exceptions,
always in blazing matters like these: blessed.

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Karl Knights @inadarkwood.bsky.social · 22/01/2026

Hard to believe that Michael Longley died a year ago today. Here's a favourite poem from The Slain Birds, the last book he saw into print. The poem is dedicated to Gail McConnell, a superb poet in her own right.

Sappho
for Gail McConnell

I

How much of what we scribble down survives –
Sappho’s miraculous bits and pieces,
Dialect words for kitchen utensils,
See-through dresses, moonbeams – somebody
At a busy street corner advising
Where to shop for chickpeas and mascara.

II

Let blank spaces between parentheses
Be annotated thus by me and you
Who loiter in the margin, Sapphic souls –
Silence that has lasted a thousand years
Is poetry of a kind, Gail, poetry
Like a brain-child impatient to be born.

III

O suburban parthenogenesis,
I eavesdrop on a holy family –
Sappho would have fallen for Beth and you –
Two mothers, two wives, a baby boy’s
Thumb-sucking bliss, glistening eyelids,
Hazel-nuts safe beneath a Lesbos sky.

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Karl Knights @inadarkwood.bsky.social · 13/01/2026

Thinking of Lucille Clifton's elegy to her son, Channing, who died on this day in 2004. It's from Mercy, her collection of the same year.

Sonku

his heart, they said, was
three times the regular size.
yes, i said, i know.

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Karl Knights @inadarkwood.bsky.social · 09/01/2026

It's probably obvious, but nonetheless, a PSA. As you can probably guess from my near total lack of posting here (and indeed, across all other socials), I'm not going to be on this or any other app much. If you have need of me, I'm reachable here: karlknights.wordpress.com/contact/

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Karl Knights @inadarkwood.bsky.social · 08/01/2026

Renée Nicole Good was a poet. They won a college prize from the Academy of American Poets in 2020. You can read the prize winning poem here: poets.org/2020-on-lear...

poets.org

2020 Academy of American Poets Prize

On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs by Renée Nicole Macklin

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Karl Knights @inadarkwood.bsky.social · 05/01/2026

Quite surreal to find myself and 'my huh' in this roundup of last year's prose from the Poetry Foundation. Amidst the Mojave desert, LA, Japan and Paris, there's a Blythburgh doorstep, and teenage me, often visiting the Poetry Foundation website daily. www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/176...

The Poetry Foundation's website, with a banner of a pegasus. The hyperlink to Karl's article reads, 'This Be the Place; My Actual Huh', 'a tractor has as much right to be in a queer poem as a Fire Island reverie.'

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Karl Knights @inadarkwood.bsky.social · 31/12/2025

And here's Dennis O'Driscoll's 'New Year Party', from his posthumous collection, Update. Here's hoping the 'new year's manifesto' isn't a total crock.

New Year Party

By landslide vote
we drive the old year out,
unanimously pass
motions of no confidence.

It had been granted an entire year
to fulfil its promise, only to renege
on its mandate, plague the world
sadistically with tribulation.

The new year’s manifesto
is progressive, forward looking.
Now we may turn a fresh leaf,
happy that winter’s recession
will give way to steady growth,
longer, balmier, user-friendly days.

We take to the streets:
rabid supporters of the New Year
party, cheering its inauguration,
determined to renew its mandate
annually from now on.

Let the midnight countdown begin.
High time the bells chimed
with our boisterous rejoicing,
lent ringing endorsement
to our future prospects,
while last year’s absolute ruler
is banished: Disgraced.
Outdated. Past it. History.

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Karl Knights @inadarkwood.bsky.social · 24/12/2025

Thinking of the late Michael Longley, and his tradition of sending out a poem in the family Xmas card, alongside an illustration by his daughter, Sarah. Here's a snippet from Out of the Cold, a limited edition of their Christmas card work.

Carol by Michael Longley

As when the farmer's daughter folds in her jersey
A lamb and a bottle, so did the known universe
Come in out of the cold to find her milk warm:
'Lambie,' she crooned to herself. 'My wee lamb.'

A squiggly lined, black and white drawing, showing the outline of a sheep

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Karl Knights @inadarkwood.bsky.social · 15/11/2025

Gutting to wake up to the news of Alice Wong's death this morning. She was always kind to me, and she stuck up for me and fought my corner more than once, when I was a near stranger. She's a marvelous writer, editor, advocate and thinker. Farewell, Alice. Thanks for your urgent, caring work.

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Karl Knights @inadarkwood.bsky.social · 17/10/2025

Flabbergasted and pleasantly surprised to say the Poetry Foundation has chosen my essay as one of two nominees for the Best of the Net. My essay about a rarely recorded queer Suffolk being seen in this big a way is really touching. What a distance my Blythburgh doorstep has travelled!

The Poetry Foundation's nominees for the Best of the Net. On a red background is Mia You's essay, 'Poets on Translation: The Alter(native) Speaker' and Karl Knights' essay, 'This Be the Place: My Actual Huh'

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Karl Knights @inadarkwood.bsky.social · 30/09/2025

Genuinely gutted to read that Brian Patten has died at 79. I adored his work, and his reading at Aldeburgh is still the best reading I've seen. He emailed me shortly afterwards, to wish me luck with my writing. Here's a favourite Patten poem, from Armada, without question his best collection.

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Karl Knights @inadarkwood.bsky.social · 27/09/2025

Sorry to hear that Tony Harrison has died. In a conversation with Simon Armitage, filmed by the BBC, Harrison spoke about how he regretted that he couldn't write anything his parents might've enjoyed until after they died. Here's one of the poems in memory of his dad, among his best work for me:

Long Distance II

Though my mother was already two years dead
Dad kept her slippers warming by the gas,
put hot water bottles her side of the bed
and still went to renew her transport pass.

You couldn't just drop in. You had to phone.
He'd put you off an hour to give him time
to clear away her things and look alone
as though his still raw love were such a crime.

He couldn't risk my blight of disbelief
though sure that very soon he'd hear her key
scrape in the rusted lock and end his grief.
He knew she'd just popped out to get the tea.

I believe life ends with death, and that is all.
You haven't both gone shopping; just the same,
in my new black leather phone book there's your name
and the disconnected number I still call.

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Reposted by Karl Knights

Endless Screaming @infinitescream.bsky.social · 24/09/2025

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH

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Karl Knights @inadarkwood.bsky.social · 28/08/2025

Neurodivergent writers, how do you guard against procrastinating immensely? I'll have a writing room for a month soon. I usually write in dribs and drabs, amidst the hubbub of life. I've never had such a large slab of time solely for writing. How to make sure I don't dawdle the time away?

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Karl Knights @inadarkwood.bsky.social · 14/08/2025

Difficult to express how much I despise seeing this note on AI use underneath a BBC News article, and not for the first time.

Text on a white background which reads, 'BBC News used AI to help write the summary at the top of this article. It was edited by BBC journalists. Find out more'

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Karl Knights @inadarkwood.bsky.social · 03/08/2025

Two poems from Anna Świrszczyńska (known to American readers as Anna Swir) from her astonishing book, Building the Barricade, an account of the Warsaw Uprising. The poems, translated here by Piotr Florczyk, speak so painfully to the genocide and forced starvation happening right now in Gaza.

Lives One More Hour

The child is two months old.
The doctor says:
without milk, the child will die.

Mother wanders all day through basements
to the other side of town.
In Czerniakow
a baker has a cow.
Mother crawls on her stomach
among rubble, mud, corpses.

She brings back three spoons of milk.
The child lives
one more hour.

Two Potatoes

I carried two potatoes
a woman came up to me.

She wants to buy two potatoes
she had children.

I didn't give her two potatoes
I hid two potatoes.

I had a mother.

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Karl Knights @inadarkwood.bsky.social · 31/07/2025

Farewell to Allan Ahlberg, at age 87. Here's a favourite poem, from 1983's Please Mrs Butler. The illustration is by Fritz Wegner. Ahlberg poems are often funny, but underpinning every word and line break is a very deep sympathy for the pains of childhood that never wavers, as in this poem.

Slow Reader

I - am - in - the - slow
read-ers -group - my -broth
- er - is - in - the -foot
ball - team - my - sis -ter
is - a - ser - ver - my
lit - tle- brother - er - was
a - wise - man - in - the
in - fants - christ - mas - play
I - am - in - the - slow
read - ers - group - that is
all - I - am - in - I
hate - it.

A picture below the poem shows a show hunched over a book. Between two clocks, the words 'I am in the slow readers' floats above his head.

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Karl Knights @inadarkwood.bsky.social · 26/07/2025

A long shot, but I'll give it a whirl - do I know anyone at Princeton University? I'm looking to unearth the story of a rare, historical memoir from a queer writer in my hometown, but the papers are much larger than I anticipated, and the first 300 pages are free to students and faculty

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Karl Knights @inadarkwood.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

Look Ma, it's me (bottom left) with the mighty Bloodaxe 🙏 Being in a Bloodaxe anthology has been on my bucket list for as long as I've been a writer. We did it! And I'm in great company, too. Special thanks to Rachael and Bloodaxe for putting this reading together, and making an essential book

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Karl Knights @inadarkwood.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

Farewell, Fanny Howe. Here's the poem of hers I see most often on socials, 25 years after publication. Go read the poems, and have a go at writing your own list of things you love

I Won't Be Able to Write from the Grave

By Fanny Howe

I won't be able to write from the grave
so let me tell you what I love:
oil, vinegar, salt, lettuce, brown bread, butter,
cheese andn wine, a windy day, a fireplace,
the children nearby, poems and songs,
a friend sleeping in my bed -
and the short northern nights.

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Karl Knights @inadarkwood.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

I've debated whether to say anything about it, but I didn't get anything for my birthday, or any cards etc, for the second year in a row. Not mentioning it to raise a 'woe is me' story, but more because I suspect isolated birthdays are much more common than they might seem at first.

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Karl Knights @inadarkwood.bsky.social · 08/07/2025

I don't usually get too personal on socials (I usually focus on commenting on other things), but it is my birthday once more and I want to say, especially to queer people who are estranged entirely from their families as I am, that you aren't entirely alone in finding birthdays hard to take.

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Karl Knights @inadarkwood.bsky.social · 30/06/2025

Haven't remembered to share archival queer Suffolk stories for pride until this very moment. Here's one of my fav recent finds, an article from BBC Suffolk, 2005. It's by Kirsty, and the article is called 'A Suffolk T Girl'. Happy pride, Kirsty. 🏳️‍🌈 www.bbc.co.uk/suffolk/cont...

Alongside the article, a pictures shows Kirsty, a white woman with shoulder length blonde hair, leaning on a bar top. She's wearing a red, summery shirt and bleached jeans. The article reads,

For those of you however who may be feeling fearful, lonely, or looking for help and advice or even friendship, then this page may provide some assistance. Hopefully, this will put you in touch with those who care and understand. I know; I was once a closet ‘tranny’ myself, scared of being discovered and with no-one to turn to.

Thankfully, things have moved on a long way since then. I have, like so many, discovered my true identity and now live life to the full, enjoying the company of other like minded friends. There are many on-line moderated groups where you will find help, can share your experiences, learn from others or even buy all your girlie needs if you haven’t yet plucked up the courage to hit the high street.

If like me, you are into meeting others and making some great friends, there are a number of pubs and clubs which provide regular and safe, discreet facilities. Most will either provide TG only nights or maybe shared with the Gay & Lesbian community. In both cases and as far as East Anglia goes unfortunately, Suffolk is not yet well serviced so currently, you may need to look slightly further afield.

Whilst Suffolk is proud to say it is one of the safest counties in the country, we would like to hear of any instances of abuse, verbal or otherwise. Any form of discrimination is unacceptable and the TG community has as much right to live in peace and safety as any other.

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Karl Knights @inadarkwood.bsky.social · 27/06/2025

Farewell to Bill Moyers, who's died at 91. He's one of the very few journalists I know who was entirely comfortable talking to poets about their work. First and foremost he was a fan, and he interviewed scores of poets. Thanks for the words you asked about so well and so often, Bill.

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Karl Knights @inadarkwood.bsky.social · 14/06/2025

Weighing up buying more copies of my pamphlet and thinking about how many I'd sell these days, and feeling a fresh rage at the absolute melts who torched the social media where my connections were, making them effectively unusable and little more than a stream of AI pics and bot slop replies.

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Karl Knights @inadarkwood.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

Wonderfully strange and heartening to see my essay in the Poetry Foundation's newsletter that's just gone out, landing in inboxes all over the globe. What a distance for a Blythburgh doorstep to travel! I'm grateful that a little seen side of Suffolk can go galavanting around, finding readers. 🙏

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Karl Knights @inadarkwood.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

Thanks for all the love on the This Be the Place essay, folks. It's on the front page of the Poetry Foundation right now, and you can read it here. The messages people have written so far mean more to me than I can say. www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/169...

A screenshot of the Poetry Foundation's post of Karl's article, 'This Be the Place: My Actual Huh'.

The extract reads, 'The garden path was the first whisper of gay I heard in Suffolk. The stones seemed to say that a queer life could exist here, between the apple tree and the washing line. These paving stones, this handful of decorative pebbles, was the first smidge of a rainbow in my life, a touch of pride.'

The post ends with, 'Karl Knights on discovering queer rural life.'

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Reposted by Karl Knights

Of Poetry Podcast @ofpoetrypodcast.bsky.social · 09/06/2025

“What’s a poem, after all, but an attempt to talk to a stranger?” Recent @ofpoetrypodcast.bsky.social guest Karl Knights (@inadarkwood.bsky.social) has a new essay today on rural queerness and poetry at Poetry Foundation’s This Be the Place series! 🏳️‍🌈 📚💙

poetryfoundation.org

This Be the Place: My Actual Huh

Poems, readings, poetry news and the entire 110-year archive of POETRY magazine.

1101

Karl Knights @inadarkwood.bsky.social · 09/06/2025

Very excited to say that my piece in the Poetry Foundation's series on places is live! A piece for pride, a piece for rural queers, a piece for my neighbour, and my Blythburgh self. Excited to have gotten a slice of a little seen Suffolk onto a world stage! www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/169...

poetryfoundation.org

This Be the Place: My Actual Huh

Poems, readings, poetry news and the entire 110-year archive of POETRY magazine.

130

Karl Knights @inadarkwood.bsky.social · 07/06/2025

New poem alert! I'm in @eff-able.bsky.social, thanks to George and JP for inviting me along. Here are the first two lines of a double sonnet, a very Suffolk take on hookups (after all, what's hotter than a three hour bus ride to cover a spitting distance?) Grateful to be part of this urgent project

A white hand holding a book in front of a bookshelf. The book is Eff-able: a spicy anthology of queer crip poetry. The cover shows someone bearing their neck, holding their head high, in infra red light.

A snippet of a poem by Karl Knights, called 'What Gay Porn Doesn't Show.' The first two lines read,

The ultimate tease, the three-hour bus trip
give or take thirty minutes, to his front door.

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Reposted by Karl Knights

Roxi Horror 💀🌸 @roxiqt.com · 02/06/2025

Happy Pride Month to everyone else who is also chronically ill and high risk and unable to participate in Pride Month festivities because folks won't mask. I see you. Your love is still valid. And to everyone else who can safely attend events this month, please mask up.

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Karl Knights @inadarkwood.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

Want to read a new-ish poem by me? Well you're in luck, my poem from He / She / They / Us: Queer Poems is available via the Google Books preview, as I'm the fourth poem in the anthology. Some lines are indented, but on the whole the poem is intact! www.google.co.uk/books/editio...

google.co.uk

He, She, They, Us

A poetry book like no other, He, She, They, Us pulls together poems from queer poets both old and new – from Oscar Wilde, Emily Dickinson and Langston Hughes to the likes of Jay Hulme, Dean Atta, Josi...

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Reposted by Karl Knights

Of Poetry Podcast @ofpoetrypodcast.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

Read the full poem and listen to Episode 71: Karl Knights (Of Directness, the Music of Ordinary Language, and Writing Disability Poetics While Existing All Year) here: ofpoetrypodcast.com/2025/05/13/e...

MUM PULLS MY HANDS FROM MY EARS / AND POINTS TOWARD THE PERSON SHE THINKS I AM.

Karl Knights

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Karl Knights @inadarkwood.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

Ya girl's in the Bloodaxe newsletter this month! Read on to check out my poem that features in the new anthology, Versus Versus: 100 Poems by Deaf, Disabled & Neurodivergent Poets mailchi.mp/76aa7dd31da3...

mailchi.mp

May books, news & events from Bloodaxe

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Karl Knights @inadarkwood.bsky.social · 14/05/2025

A real joy to be on the Of Poetry Podcast, a show I listen to. Tune in for the premiere of a poem I'd never read aloud before!

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