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.”’