Cover of The Sonnets

The Sonnets

by Ted Berrigan · 1964

+ Want to read

Originally published in 1964, The Sonnetsby Ted Berrigan is considered by many to be his most important and influential book. This new annotated edition, with an introduction by Alice Notley, includes seven previously uncollected works. Like Shakespeare's sonnets, Berrigan's poems involve friendship and love triangles, but while the former happen chronologically, Berrigan's happen in the moment, with the story buried beneath a surface of names, repetitions, and fragmented experience. Reflecting the new American sensibilities of the 1960's as well as timeless poetic themes, The Sonnetsis both eclectic and classical — the poems are monumental riddles worth contemplating.

Audience
adult
Length
short · 94 pages
Form
poetrypoetryMore like thisLess of this

Click a tag to see books like this one that share it. Point at it (on a phone, tap it) for less of it instead.

Read it? Sign in to help tag it.

BuyAmazonGoogle Books

BorrowOpen LibraryA library near you

MoreCompare pricesHardcover

Liked The Sonnets? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked The Sonnets. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. Modern Life Matthea Harvey · 2007 Shares poetry, poems, contemporary poetry
  2. “A” Louis Zukofsky · 1959 Shares poetry, poetry poetics, contemporary poetry
  3. My Life Lyn Hejinian · 1980 Shares poetry, poems, contemporary poetry
  4. Come on All You Ghosts Matthew Zapruder · 2010 Shares poetry, poems, poetry poetics
See more recommendations →

“People who read The Sonnets tend to reach for these next.”

  1. My Vocabulary Did This to Me: The Collected Poetry Jack Spicer · 2008
  2. The Maximus Poems Charles Olson · 1960
  3. Collected Works Lorine Niedecker, Jenny Lynn Penberthy · 2002
  4. Collected Poems of George Oppen George Oppen · 1972

“If you want more of the same, start with these.”

  1. This Nest, Swift Passerine Dan Beachy-Quick · 2009
  2. The World is Full of Foolish Men Jean de La Fontaine
  3. All the Things I Never Said Mae Krell · 2013
  4. Fire and Ice Robert Frost · 2012

“If it was the poetry that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. Given Sugar, Given Salt Jane Hirshfield · 2001
  2. This Clumsy Living Bob Hicok · 2006
  3. Ooga-Booga: Poems Frederick Seidel · 2006
  4. In the Pines Alice Notley · 2007

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. The Sonnets and A Lover's Complaint William Shakespeare · 1609
  2. The Collected Poems Theodore Roethke · 1961
  3. The Whole Motion: Collected Poems, 1945 1992 James Dickey · 1992
  4. Ozymandias Percy Bysshe Shelley · 1817

Report a problem