The previous post was inspired by the September 30 post on Ron Silliman's blog. The subject at hand was the Reality Street Book of Sonnets. First off, let me say I have never seen the book in question, most likely never will. I am unacquainted with most of the contributors, and those with which I am familiar are not so because of their work in the sonnet form, Berrigan included. That should pretty well shoot to hell any street cred I may try to put across as a postmodern sort, but so be it. The point here is, what the deuce constitutes a sonnet anymore?

First, I do not pretend to know the history of the form, nor how it has been exploited by the experimentalists in the aforementioned anthology. Silliman seems smitten by the more oblique examples, those that seem to indicate that anything 14 lines long can go by the name sonnet. And in a sense this is true; as soon as a reader realizes that any poem is fourteen lines long, at the very least it is seen as some kind of 'echo'. And of course if one labels one's work a sonnet, then it forces the reader to consider why exactly it should not be so considered. And Berrigan, for his part, not only titles the work in that way, but uses the device of the sonnet cycle as well. There is a narrative arc, of a kind, and direct (and indirect) appropriations from the Bard. The result of these kinds of experiments is a kind of dialogue with established literary tradition and forbears that can be both entertaining and fruitful for future ventures into formal explorations. The problem is that suddenly any idiot can throw out some random fourteen "lines" and claim the title of "sonneteer". It suddenly begins to resemble current "outlaw" country music or the NFL rebel of today. When Willie Nelson and Joe Namath were doing their own thing, there was something at stake; Terrell Owens and Toby Keith risk nothing with their posturing.