The Sonnets

by Jim Behrle

Over the course of 200+ short poems, Behrle attempts to capture the spirit of the early 2000s. Although not sonnets in the traditional sense, they resonate as a sequence with a strange, relentless power.

915 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 28, 2019

Reviews

[Michael Lindgren · Rating 5 out of 5]

This outstanding collection of brief, fractured lyrics showcases the work of underrated poet Jim Behrle, late of Boston and Brooklyn, now living in Jersey City. The book's title is a sly bit of misdirection, a double-pump head-fake: at first glance these 231 brief poems, although numbered, do not appear to be sonnets per se -- but if you look closely, and count the space breaks as lines, they do indeed (mostly) comprise fourteen metrical units. This bit of formal gamesmanship creates a ghostly sub-structure that lends the collection a unifying structure and sensibility. The lyric movement of these poems is towards a whirling entropy, as surreal images, advertising slogans, pop culture allusions, headlines, bits of rhyme, off-color jokes, non sequiturs, and scrambled koans all run together in a jostling current of free-wheeling verbal flux. The overall effect is one of capacious imaginative energy, humor, and a sneaky, offhand soulfulness.