I’m the One with the Blue Cap on

If a central question in literary biography is how to separate the poetry from the life of the poet, then the case of Jeffrey Knapp proves the impossibility of the task. For the playful-but-serious exuberance of his writing seems indivisible from the serious-but-playful exuberance of the life Jeffrey led as a champion of art and culture, of teaching and parenting, of eating and drinking and laughing and crying. It’s a wonderful experience, joining the atmosphere, he writes, in the poem The Acupuncture of Heaven, a cry of cosmic solidarity that presumes the membrane between the self and the world to be as permeable as the boundary between art and life. We can only hope that Jeffrey is right about that, and that when our time comes we find him waiting for us with a new poem a glass of wine. In the meantime, reading this collection is itself a wonderful experience, and a reminder of the remarkable talent, charm, intelligence, wit and boundless energy of Jeffrey Knapp. -Campbell McGrath