21 Facts About Etheridge Knight

Etheridge Knight was an African-American poet who made his name in 1968 with his debut volume, Poems from Prison.

Etheridge Knight is considered an important poet in the mainstream American tradition.

Or, rather, Etheridge Knight was, as he often said, a poet of the belly: a poet of the earth and of the body, a poet of the feelings from which cries and blood oaths and arias come, while Stevens was a poet, arguably, of the ache left in the intellect after it tears itself from God.

In 1947, Etheridge Knight enlisted in the army and served as a medical technician in the Korean War until November 1950, during which time he sustained serious wound as well as psychological trauma, which led him to begin using morphine.

Etheridge Knight spent much of the next several years dealing drugs and stealing to support his drug addiction.

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Etheridge Knight was initially so furious about his sentence that he was later unable to recall much of what happened during his first few months of his sentence.

Etheridge Knight started establishing contacts with significant figures in the African-American literary community, including well-known poets like Gwendolyn Brooks, Dudley Randall, Sonia Sanchez and Haki Madhubuti, many of whom came to visit him in prison.

Etheridge Knight continued writing his third book, Belly Song and Other Poems, which was published in 1973.

Etheridge Knight married Mary McAnally in 1972, and she adopted two children.

Etheridge Knight then resided in Memphis, Tennessee, where he received Methadone treatments.

Etheridge Knight rose from a life of poverty, crime, and drug addiction to become exactly what he expressed in his notebook in 1965: a voice that was heard and helped his people.

Etheridge Knight believed the poet was a "meddler" or intermediary between the poem and the reader.

Etheridge Knight elaborated on this concept in his 1980 work Born of a Woman.

The Essential Etheridge Knight, which is a compilation of his work.

Etheridge Knight taught at the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Hartford, and Lincoln University, before he was forced to stop working due to illness.

Etheridge Knight continued to be known as a charismatic poetry reader.

Etheridge Knight died in Indianapolis, Indiana, of lung cancer on March 10,1991.

The reader can imagine Etheridge Knight walking in small circles within his cell, as the words of the poem wind tighter and tighter.

Etheridge Knight concludes rather than questions that ?good? can ?come out of prison.

Etheridge Knight's poetry expresses our freedom of consciousness and attests to our capacity for connection to others.

Etheridge Knight's wife's representing ?growth and life? while his are from ?war, violence, and slavery.