DescriptionAssociated with the Black Arts Movement, Knight began writing poetry while serving a prison term for armed robbery, referring to prison as "my major metaphor". In 1968 he was released from prison, published the book Poems from Prison, and married poet Sonia Sanchez. Although his work was widely acclaimed, Knight struggled all his life with a drug habit he picked up as a result of an injury suffered while fighting in the Korean War.
DescriptionDavid Ignatow reads five poems: "The world is so difficult to give up...", "This is the solution, to be happy with slaughter...", "Here I am with mike in hand, shooting down the rapids...", "I killed a fly...", and "What about dying?...". Mr. Ignatow lived most of his life in the New York City area and was known as a keen observer of urban life. In his 1991 book, Shadowing The Ground, Ignatow began to reflect, in an almost Zen-like way, upon his mortality and his unwillingness to face death.
DescriptionAnne Sexton, along with Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath, is among the major poets of the Confessional movement. Sexton used poetry as therapy and wrote openly about her lovers, menstruation, abortion, and other problems. Her 1966 book, Live or Die, was awarded a Pulitzer Prize. Sexton lost her battle with mental illness when she committed suicide in 1974.
