What does it mean to experiment in art, and particularly poetry? More significantly, what distinguishes the goal of the experimental poet from others? The poetry and teachings of Bill Knott (1940—2014) offer us one possible template, however inimitable. It’s childish to suggest that the experimental mode is one of mere norms-defying, though Knott’s work certainly can do that. If it were only that, after many such experiments, there would be no norms left to break. Experimentation must be not only about what to free, but also what to restrict. The experimenter hopes to learn as much from confirmation as from the null hypothesis. #@callout It’s childish to suggest that the experimental mode is one of mere norms-defying No teacher has offered me a more direct lesson in this than Bill. He had many collaborators, friends, and, yes, disciples. I can’t count myself among any of those. Of the many students he taught over a long career at Emerson College, I was one of a mob. Indeed, I only took one class with Emerson’s most formidable and opinionated poet. But one was more than enough. Bill was hard on his students, myself included. The dissemination of prosodic technique generally proceeds smoother with carrot over stick. But Bill leaned on the latter, once pounding his fist on the desk, and shouting, “no, no no!” in response to my draft’s poor attempt to coerce rhyme. Such outbursts were hardly infrequent. Nevertheless, his words of advice, given at his prime, have become among my most cherished. The abuse Bill Knott experienced growing up in a midwest orphanage is already well-documented by others, and in his formal masterpiece “Christmas at the Orphanage,” he reflects clear-eyed. After the first stanza setting the scene of unwrapping the gifts, its second stanza inverts the conventional octave/sestet structure, giving us the eight lines after the first six. It ends thusly: @poemexcerpt{ […] the child that wanted to scream at all You stole those gifts from me; whose birthday is worth such words? The wish-lists they’d made us write out in May lay granted against starred branches. I said I’m sorry. } Knott’s poem rhymes subtly, incorporating feminine rhyme to make its cadences wince. He also bends the tolerances of meter past the breaking point. The stampede of stresses in the third line above can’t be coerced into any metrical pattern I can think of, iambic or not; the next line, with its anapestic second foot “us write out” is hardly returns him to form. Nevertheless, Knott lands the classic themes of the form like love and faith, effectively incorporating what I have often called “the pivot to the eternal” of the volta. The injection of Christ via “whose birthday is worth such words” connects the lament of the speaker to sonnets of Herbert, Milton, and Wordsworth. (In the violent shifts in register I hear another great, if troubled, Boston poet, Robert Lowell). The “sorry” at the end reads not as an apology but a status summary. #@callout Knott lands the classic themes of the form There are some interesting experiments here—in addition to inverting the structure of the Petrarchan sonnet, Knott also declines the usual practice of treating the feminine rhyme’s unstressed final syllable (want*ed*, grant*ed*, sorr*y*) as a freebee, as in: fare__well!__ / thou __art__ / too __dear __/ for __my__ / poss__ess__(ing) Note how Shakespeare’s final *ing *occurs as an extra syllable only *after* all five requisite iambic feet have been fulfilled. By contrast, Knott prematurely terminates similar lines with trochees, shorting us that bonus syllable we are traditionally owed. Both experiments are small departures, yet they serve his poem well—the former giving shape to a life lived out-of-order, and the latter better sings his privation. No teacher, not even one most assured and sensitive in the pedagogical arts, could hope to teach the average 20-something grad student how to write such a poem, let alone in a dozen or so hectic class sessions. It would take me decades of further study to appreciate what Knott had accomplished, let alone attempt to match it. Knott clearly didn’t restrict himself to poetic form, and much of his free verse pushes against less discrete conventions. He took a lot of risks, and, as in his classroom, sometimes took them too far. But he never disrespected the craft. Bill Knott understood how poems are made: not always by those born to the gift, but by those determined to test it.