The Grapevine Art & Soul Salon
Jonathan Knott
Jonathan Knott, Host of The Grapevine's Tracking History column and our World Voices column as well as Manager of our Museum, also writes reviews and features. As Associate Editor, he reads material submitted to The Grapevine by other contributing writers and prospective writers, and he participates in selection and editing of new pieces. Many of the photographs on the site were taken by Jonathan, whose studies include history, biology, psychology, film, music, and creative writing. He graduated from Georgia Film School and took Warner Herzog's Film Master Class online. He is presently enrolled at the Atlanta Institute of Music and Media (AIMM), studying audio engineering.
He has a lifelong interest in writing about history and enjoys traveling to historically interesting places, the most recent of which was a trip to Las Vegas, Nevada, that yielded three pieces for Issue 20 of The Grapevine. In December 2015 he went to Dublin, Ireland's UNESCO city of literature, for a writers conference and long looks at the historically vibrant landscape. (See our Dublin Diary column for more on this trip.) He is a member of the Atlanta Writers Club where, in 2019, he entered his "Sonnet to Soap and Wax" into the Natasha Tretheway prize for poetry competition and became one of three finalists. Submitting the same poem to Winning Writers' Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest, he emerged as one of 27 finalists out of the 5,539 poets who entered.
His study partners are, he says, distant descendants of wolves that lie on his couch and accept donations of snacks and tummy rubs in exchange for their opinions on ancient battle tactics and the origins of line-sight film editing.
Jonathan's poetic sense of humor is fully present in his "Sonnet to Soap and Wax" (see link below). You may also enjoy opening his "Love Song to the Owl" and all the rest.
For this issue, he has prepared a fun tribute to Leonard Cohen as he honors also two of our Pekingese dogs that have passed along and possibly will link up to LC in the Great Beyond. We hope so.
"Ching and Chang" as sung to "Suzanne"
Tawny Ching takes you down to his bedding near the heater
You can hear the folks go by as you spend the night beside him
And you know that he's half crazy but that's why you want to be there.
He gives you fleas and dander flakes that come all the way from China
and just when you mean to tell him that you have no tasty tweets to give him
then he gets you on his wavelength
and he gives a toothsome answer that you've always been his lover.
And you want to travel with him and you want to travel blind
and you know that he will trust you
for you've touched his absurd body with your mind.
Black Changy was a sailor when he drank up all the water
and he spent a long time peeing from his lonely hugeous wee-wee
and when he knew for certain only drowning dogs could see him
He said, "All dogs will be sailors then until my pee shall free them."
Forsaken, almost human, he slid up to his food bowl like a stone.
And you want to travel with him and you want to travel blind
and you think maybe you'll trust him 'till you trip
and bust your ass next to his bone.
He's touched your perfect body with his absurd mind.
Chingy takes his leash as he leads you to the kitchen.
He is wearing silly t-shirts from the Wal-Mart toddler section.
The sun pours down like honey from between his tawny curtains
and he shows you where to look inside the pantry and the icebox.
There are tweets inside the tweet-box, there is sausage in the package.
They are leaning out for love and they will lean that way forever
while Chingy looks at Changy waiting
for you to use your thumbs to tweet them.
And you would let them choose'em blindly
but you know that you can't trust them
'cause they're thinking with their bellies, not their minds.
Now Ching and Chang are housemates who
cannot be dismissed by me or you
but must be tolerated
'cause they're still here
where they live with love unmeasured
as we go on thinking of them.
Bless their infinitely absurd
pettable and wettable
bellies, hearts and minds.
LINKS to archived articles by Jonathan Knott in The Grapevine.
Rier Watching the Mighty Boinne
Ocean Tracking at the National Civil War Naval Museum in Columbus, Georgia
Jonathan Knott and Barbara Knott: In Full Swing
Dog Heroics: Sgt. Stubby in WWI and in Film Now
Valley of Fire and The Wild Side of Cities: Las Vegas
Jonathan Knott: Harry Crews Redefines Freedom of Speech in Fiction
The Unusual Pleasures of Oakland Cemetery
Review: Center for Puppetry Arts, Great Expectations
Tracking History: A Fresh Look at General Sherman
Tracking History: Atlanta History Center Visualizes the Civil War a Century and a Half Later
Tracking History: Horses and History
Film Review: Looking at the Old West with Robert Altman in McCabe and Mrs. Miller, 1971
Tracking History: Is the Past Really Past?
Tracking History: Battle of Britain
Tracking History: A Short Hike
Tracking History: Journey to Andersonville
Thoughts and Thrills in Pan's Labyrinth
Book Review: A Cry of Angels by Jeff Fields
Book Review: The Year the Music Changed by Diane Thomas
Film Review: Walk the Line (scroll down page)
Film Review: Master and Commander
Copyright 2021, Barbara Knott. All Rights Reserved.