Knowing by Mark Cox (June-Aug. 2024)

Please join us for the summer 2024 blog tour for Knowing by Mark Cox, published by Press 53 in April 2024.

Mark Cox pulls no punches in these poems about loving, drinking, traveling, and screwing up his relationships and parts of his life. “Looking back for a low point marking the worst of my insobriety, it might be that signal moment I put out my cigarette in the holy water font of St. Paul’s Catholic church, right in front of the priest. . .” Sometimes sobering, often times funny, but always honest, the poems in Knowing aim for the heart and soul of us all.

Praise for Previous Collections:

On Readiness

Thrilling prose poems from a cherished writer . . . . Cox gives lie to the common notion that prose poetry is too formless to count as real verse . . . . [He] is as careful with diction, rhythm, and even rhyme as one might be if they were writing strict alexandrines-and yet, his poems are as fluid and readable as Jack Kerouac’s novels. -Kirkus Reviews

On Sorrow Bread

Tony Hoagland has said Mark Cox is “a veteran of the deep water; there’s no one like him,” and Thomas Lux identified him as “one of the finest poets of his generation.” No one speaks more effectively of the vital and enduring syntaxes of common, even communal, life. -Richard Simpson

On Natural Causes

One of the best books I’ve read in years. In a style that’s brash, offbeat, tough-minded and big-hearted, these poems explore the fundamental mysteries of love between parent and child, self and other, self and world. Beyond the inventive language and formal range, what makes this work so memorable is Cox’s refusal to look away from even the hardest facts of “unadulterated sorrow.” -Alan Shapiro

About the Poet:

Mark Cox has authored six other volumes of poetry, the most recent being Readiness (2018) and Sorrow Bread: Poems 1984-2015 (2017). He has a forty-year history of publication in prominent magazines and his honors include a Whiting Writers Award, a Pushcart Prize, the Oklahoma Book Award, and The Society of Midland Authors Poetry Prize. He chairs the Department of Creative Writing at UNC Wilmington and teaches in the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA Program.

Add to GoodReads:

Available on Amazon and Bookshop.

Tour Schedule:

June 13: The Book Lover’s Boudoir (review)

June 18: Lavender Orchids (review)

June 20: Lavender Orchids (interview)

June 26: Wall-to-Wall Books (review)

July 1: Ashley’s Books (Instagram review)

July 2: Anthony Avina’s blog (review)

July 9: Anthony Avina’s blog (interview)

July 16: The Reading Bud (review)

July 18: The Reading Bud (interview)

July 24: Review Tales (review)

July 30: Savvy Verse & Wit (review)

Aug. 9: True Book Addict (Review)

Aug. 22: The Book Connection (Review)

Follow the tour with the hashtag #KnowingPoems