Bocage

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Winner of The 2007 X.J. Kennedy Poetry Prize

“Bocage” and Other Sonnets is a collection of meticulously crafted sonnets that take a hard-edged, uncompromising look at human behavior—like the man trapped in an elevator with his former lover’s husband, the criminal staring at his own wanted poster, the colorblind visitor in an art gallery, or the cartographer who creates a fictitious town. This diverse collection of poems also includes some light verse, love sonnets, translations, and several Biblically based sonnets.

About the Author

WILLIAM BAER is the author of fifteen books, including three previous collections of poetry: The Ballad Rode into Town, “Borges” and Other Sonnets, and The Unfortunates, recipient of the T.S. Eliot Prize. A current Guggenheim fellow, he’s also received a Fulbright (Portugal), an N.E.A creative writing fellowship, and the Jack Nicholson Screenwriting Award. He currently serves as the Melvin M. Peterson Chair in the English Department at the University of Evansville in southwest Indiana.

Reviews

"Imagine the perfect short story, the way it transports you into a different natural and social world, the way its characters grip you with their stress and their alien yet familiar minds and feelings, the way its plot twists and crackles. Then imagine that all of that freshness and strangeness and force is condensed into fourteen lines, preserving the essence of the voice, the brilliance of significant sensory detail, the vigor of dramatic address. And then imagine that it is presented in an ancient and severely beautiful poetic form, but then cracked open so that it is utterly contemporary and idiomatic. Now multiply this experience by fifty-five, the number of sonnets in Baer's book--and drench the whole with brusque romance of 'Portuguese Petrarchanism' and you will have some hint of the pleasures of its reader."
--Frederick Turner

Published by Texas Review Press

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Of Related Interest

The Southern Poetry Anthology, Volume X: Alabama