INVITATION
Your comment for publication about a sonnet in this revision
is welcomed.
is welcomed.
My 2015 prosimetrum with 154 sonnets, Thanks for Noticing: The Interpretation of Desire, locally sold out quickly. I'm now ready to publish a revision, and the existing "blurbs" and reviews of the book are already excellent and need no changes.
For a wider reach, I am collecting commentary on specific sonnets to be published as a companion volume and on line. These comments will be introduced with a note that commentators are responding only to specific sonnets and have not reviewed the entire book.
I want honest comments from many
perspectives: disagreeable comments are certainly welcome. Comments can
treat the meaning of the sonnet, its technical features, how it
reflects (or fails to reflect) Shakespeare's 1609 Sonnets, or
tangents to the sonnet you'd like to write about — political, musical, scientific, religious, sexual, literary, legal,
nautical, psychological, social, or any other interest the sonnet might
call to mind that you'd wish to explore. You'll help me select the sonnet that might best interest you. Comments should be at least three good paragraphs and longer if you wish. You’ll provide me with a bio so you can be properly credited.
* Here are a dozen such comments already on line.
* Here are five suggestions for your commentary
(unless we have arranged otherwise).
* Here's my bio.
* Here's background for the revision.
* Here's a review of the English sonnet form.
* Here's a surfeit of communications about the 2015 edition.
_______________
For more information, write me at vern@cres.org.
You may have landed here from vernbarnet.com -- welcome!
#suggestions
Five Suggestions
0. Right now I particularly solicit comments on specific sonnets.
1. If you want to comment on the book, please know that I am grateful for whatever you might say -- positive, hostile, questioning, auguring, reframing. You will help draw attention to -- help others notice -- the revised book by whatever you say. Length is entirely up to you, from a sentence to a long-form essay.
If you don't want to comment, please know that I am grateful for whatever attention you care to give to the book, and I hope you find some interest and maybe pleasure from it.
2. If you write without the chance to review the whole book and are cautious about the more scandalous/blasphemous/profane sonnets, they are indicated in the revision by a dash on either side of the page number in the Contents (pages 6-7); the page numbers are 50 + the sonnet numbers. These sonnets might be considered problematical:
GLORIA -- 25, 43, 55,
CONFITEOR -- 90, 101
SANCTUS ET BENEDICTUS -- 113-115, 118-125, 127-135
AGNUS DEI -- 139, 143, 146, 148.
3. You can write about a particular sonnet, or a pair, or group of them, or about any part of the book, or the book as a whole. If you want a suggestion from me, I'll probably have one, if I haven't already offered an idea or two!
4. Here are some possibilities for other themes and approaches --
* the organization of the book by parts of the Mass
* comparisons with Shakespeare (and/or other sonnet writers)
* sexuality and/or spirituality
* use of world religions
or a particular tradition such as Christianity, Buddhism, or Islam.
* musical references (or just opera references)
* the musicality of the sonnets as a technical achievement or failure
* use of, and variations in, the sonnet form
* aids included in the book, such as
the Foreword, the Introduction, the Collect for Purity
the guide to reading sonnets (pages 220-221)
suggested reading schedules (page 48)
and other appendices.
5. Feel free to contact me if you have questions. For example, if you want me to identify all the sonnets that employ carpentry metaphors, or all referring to T S Eliot, or all the sonnets in Petrarchan form, just let me know.
Gratefully,
Vern
Vern