Poetry of Love and Death

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Winner of the 2006 Dorothy Hewett Flagship Fellowship, Tasmanian poet Karen Knight was in Scotland in April 2007 as part of the UNESCO City of Literary Exchange Program.

In our audio interview she describes how a chance purchase of a second-hand copy of the National Geographic magazine introduced her to an aspect of Walt Whitman’s life previously unknown to her – his dedicated work in field hospitals during the American Civil War. As she researched Whitman’s life, she found all sorts of aspects stimulated poems; the resulting sequence was titled Under the One Granite Roof.

Other themes pursued in her poetry include her love of birds, mental health and her mother’s death.

Interview with Karen Knight

© Jennie Renton 2007

• MP3