The Garden and the Library: Where Flowers and Books Come Together

   

      Thank goodness for libraries. 
         Where else can you go as often as you want and it's always free? Sometimes they even have people standing up in the front of the room reading things for you. 
           That's what I'll be doing next month at Plymouth Public Library, introducing and reading some of the poems from my first book of poetry, titled "Gardeners Do It With Their Hands Dirty."
            We'll also be showing some slides taken of flowering plants grown in our perennials garden in Quincy. And offering refreshments. Maybe some the strawberries from the garden referred to in these poems will be ready by then.
             The reading takes place on Monday, June 12, from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Plymouth library is located at 132 South St. The event is free. Paperback copies of chapbook will be available for purchase and signing for $15.

             Here's the "third-person" press release I've been putting about to promote my new slim volume of verses. You may have seen it before.

Globe Reporter's Poems Blossom in New Poetry Book

            Boston Globe writer Robert Knox, a Quincy resident, has published his first book of poetry, "Gardeners Do It With Their Hands Dirty."

            The book consists of 27 poems, many of them related to gardening, the outdoors, planting a perennial flower garden, and the environment. Other subjects include a father's brush with death in World War II, visits to Greece and Lebanon, a busy day on a Boston beach,family crises, a birthday party, a nostalgic glance at youthful dreams, and an encounter with Syrian refugees.

            The book received advance praise from Boston University poet and short story writer Robert Wexelblatt, who stated, "Knox's well-tended garden of verses furnishes readers with elegant borders, unexpected vistas, gorgeous blossoms, and insights as sharp as thorns. His themes are as local as the backyard and as universal as the weather."

            According to the publisher's description of the book: "The poems followed a backyard gardener's decision to dig up all the grass at his Boston area home and plant flowers, both perennials annuals, ground covers, shrubs, a small tree or two, berry bushes, and vegetables. To  be an amateur means to do something not for money, but for love. A few summers later the garden blossomed, and the poems grew from the voices heard while tending the plants, pulling weeds, trimming old growth, planting anew." 

            Knox is a freelance correspondent with a thousand bylines in the Globe South, other sections of the Boston Globe, and other newspapers. A former Plymouth resident and editor/writer for the Plymouth newspaper The Old Colony Memorial, Knox recently published the novel, "Suosso's Lane," based on the Massachusetts roots of the Sacco-Vanzetti case. He presented programs on the book and the history behind it at a dozen South Shore libraries and other regional settings.

            As contributing editor for the online poetry journal Verse-Virtual.com, Knox has published new poetry on a monthly basis on that site. His poems and stories have also appeared in other literary periodicals.

            The poetry chapbook was published in May this year by Finishing Line Press, an active independent publisher of poetry based in Kentucky.

            "Gardeners Do It With Their Hands Dirty" is available from the publisher's website, www.finishinglinepress.com, for $14.99.