TOP OF BACK COVER Author's Description of Thanks for Noticing: The Interpretation of Desire  Front Cover: The poetic form does not merely contain a sentiment as a glass contains water. Rather speak of the grail containing wine; the meaning of each is intensified by the other. In poetry the form and the sentiment are as intimately related as the body and the soul. —from the "Introduction" My book is a collection of 154 original sonnets and glosses. Shakespeare’s Sonnets number 154 and I want to be compared to the best. Hebrew texts such as Jeremiah, Dante’s La Vita Nuova, T S Eliot’s “The Waste Land,” and Nabokov’s Pale Fire are precedents for this mix of poetry and prose, a prosimetrum of 224 pages. Lovers of all kinds turn to Shakespeare for his depth of emotion and richness of thought, even though most of the sonnets were written to a beautiful young man and some to a mysterious dark lady. With copious commentary, these fresh sonnets similarly range through many moods from youthful folly to maturity, from infatuation to insight, often with images from the world's religions, to explore the sacred beauty of sex and love. On page 49, before sonnets appear, one per page, is the Collect for Purity in Latin, Middle English, Early Modern English, and contemporary English versions. Because the sonnets are arranged by parts of the Mass, and identify the spiritual with the erotic, some may consider the book blasphemous. Epigraphs (from Catullus to Steely Dan) introduce most sonnets, and glosses explain terms and allusions from many spiritual and philosophical traditions (A to Z, American Indian to Zoroastrian, Fa Tsang to Paul Tillich, Nagarjuna to Wittgenstein). These notes also explain references to science (xylem tissue to the Higgs boson). The book begins with a Frontispiece (a tune I’ve written for one of the sonnets), a Dedication in memory of a beloved friend, a Foreword, and an Introduction (10,000 words about desire, love, sex, and the sonnet form). Appendices outline how these sonnets fit into an overview of world religions and describe the historical circumstances of Shakespeare’s sonnets. Along with an author’s biographical sketch you will find a dozen testimonials from local and national figures.  Shakespeare's Sonnets appeared in 1609; and now, over 400 years since, my book is a way of honoring Shakespeare's own struggles with his beloved young man and the mysterious dark lady. Who might be interested in my book?      ::  lovers, past, present, and future: anyone with a desire      ::  readers of poetry      ::  those interested in world religions      ::  students of gender studies      ::  LGBTQIA folks and allies      ::  members of, and those interested in, liturgical Christianity      ::  those pursuing mystical understandings The particular approach to sexuality and spirituality might be summarized this way:      1. Sexual desire can be an engine by which we come to know others profoundly.      2. Sexual desires are far too rich, varied, mutable to be described by "binary" and "orientation" categories.      3. The desire to know others is a way of knowing God.      4. Paradoxically, such knowing is possible only by abandoning desires. This is not a book to read in a single sitting. Page 8 suggests several plans for reading the book in one year's time to within three weeks. I hope you will find pleasure and insight from shameful folly and glorious glimses of maturity. Bottom of Back Cover copyright © 2015, 2025 by Vern Barnet, Kansas City, MO

A sonnet, "little sound," is, first, read and heard aloud.   Sonic!     For various related resources, try this link.