The Reality Street Book of Sonnets

The Reality Street Book of Sonnets

This is not just another modern sonnet anthology. THE REALITY STREET BOOK OF SONNETS delves more thoroughly than ever before into the myriad ways poets have stretched, deconstructed and re-composed the venerable form: here we have free-verse sonnets, prose sonnets, offbeat takes on the sonnet tradition, and even visual and concrete sonnets. We take as our time frame 1945 to the 21st century, with poets ranging from Edwin Denby (b. 1903) to those currently in their twenties, from the UK, the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. In his introductory essay Jeff Hilson, the editor, speaking of Ted Berrigan's regeneration of the form, writes: 'It also registers something of a paradox, announcing the sonnet as an impossibility whilst demonstrating its continued vitality, not unlike Beckett's "I can't go on, I'll go on."' The Reality Street Book of Sonnets is flat out the best book of its kind I have ever seen. It is easily - too easily, alas - the finest collection of contemporary sonnets ever put together. And it's one of those books - not unlike Donald Allen's anthology, The New American Poetry, or Jerry Rothenberg's first ventures into the field, with Shaking the Pumpkin & Revolution of the Word , that make you realize just how important and powerful a truly good anthologist can be. And what a force for good. Hilson, by gathering together the very best that has been done in the name of the sonnet, along with his contributors, from Edwin Denby & Ted Berrigan & John Clarke to Laynie Browne, Juliana Spahr & Jay MillAr - called here Jay Millar - may just have rescued this venerable genre from the necrotic clutches of nostalgia.- RON SILLIMAN Hilson's "sonnet umbrella" shelters writers and artists alike, and the result is an anthology which stretches the definition of verse as well as sonnetry. - VAL NOLAN, PN Review This anthology is a beautiful and edgy hotel that you want to stay in for weeks and weeks, until you'vde lived in all the rooms. And then you want to start again. - IAN MCMILLAN, The North JEFF HILSON runs Xing the Line poetry reading series in London and is Reader in Creative Writing at the University of Roehampton. Used Book in Good Condition