The Wild Sonnets: Volume VII (601-700)

Nicholas Korn has undertaken an ambitious project in his ‘Wild Sonnets’ poem sequence. It is also a surprisingly original project, given the long history of the sonnet form. Korn has invented a new sonnet form which may in time — like in the cases of Petrarch, Shakespeare, and Spenser — come to be known as a ‘Kornian’ sonnet.

The structure of a Kornian sonnet is as follows: 14 lines divided into two equal sections of 7 (as opposed to the 8 and 6 of Petrarch). The opening section presents the theme of the poem, and the closing section responds. 

Meter is irregular; lines are sometimes iambic, but often not. There are often 5 beats to a line, but not always—there may be 4 or 6. While each section concludes with a couplet, the other lines do not regularly have end rhymes, though occasionally they do. Internal rhymes, both perfect and near, will often occur. Korn also uses alliteration and assonance heavily in a way that is tightly controlled. 

The irregular nature of a Kornian sonnet may make it more difficult to strictly imitate than a Shakespearean or Petrarchan sonnet. Perhaps this is Korn’s point—no one is quite the same as another. 

With the publication of Volume VII (601–700), Korn now has 700 of these poems under his belt, which is about twice the number of poems collected in Petrarch’s Canzoniere. He has no intention of stopping anytime soon. Each poem is titled with a number. These are not the lovelorn sonnets that Petrarch and Shakespeare wrote, which have become the standard fare of this form. 

Korn tackles a wide variety of themes, not divided into sections. While he may have had some hidden intention in organizing his poems the way he does, there is not an overt logical structure to their organization. 

Conventional wisdom cites that a person should begin a poem with an idea in mind. Korn confided to me that this is not how he operates. The opening of poem #672 gives an insight into his practice: 

Portents and pretense — both came to me 
Swimming like fish to feeding — first on the surface
Nothing, then random and ripple, all nibble 
And needing. I cast what rustling crumbs I have 
Onto the pooling patience of my memory: 
My parents’ house, the dancing maid I missed, 
The imperfect work to which I still persist. 

 One can see how the lovely alliterative phrase “Portents and pretense” simmered in Korn’s mind and provided him with the kindling for a poem, which then grew into a fire as he developed this literary kernel into an idea. What follows in the imagery of the feeding fish— “first on the surface / Nothing, then random and ripple”—might be a good metaphor for how Korn’s brain seems to operate in the writing process, in which the poet casts “rustling crumbs” on the “pooling patience” of memory. 

Korn is highly skilled at metaphor-making, demonstrating what Aristotle once wrote of this ability in his Poetics — that it is the mark of genius, and the most important feature of good imaginative writing. 

Korn’s response to the first stanza of sonnet #672 develops his theme through more water imagery: 

But from the retrograde and grievance of the past, 
I unanchor from the deep and into the ocean’s 
Distance drift away. What more of home do these 
Sad limbs of mine require but this lonely 
And tilting ship? What mistress more do my nights
Desire than the silken stars that harem in the black?
What perfection more than the intent to not turn back? 

Beginning on the surface, we now proceed into the depths as the poet drifts out to sea in his “lonely / And tilting ship.” 

Korn’s work is a masterclass in poetical conceits and unfurling ideas through imagery. Korn has a YouTube channel of the same name where he reads two of these poems once a week. It is a great way to bring poetry to the masses. 

Nevertheless, reading these highly meditative poems in paperback form offers advantages that elude those of video and modern technology. I highly recommend the ‘Wild Sonnets’ series by one of the leading lyric poets of our time.