Ernest Hilbert

Ernest Hilbert, in Sixty Sonnets, reminds us how vigorous and fun a form the sonnet is. That the form is still fecund becomes abundantly clear when one sits down with this collection and reads four, seven, nine sonnets at a sitting. Reading one, a reader is apt to say, "Yup, that sure is a sonnet," but reading several one inevitably compares each sonnet with those that precede and follow it, and if the poet is as skillful as Hilbert one delights in how much can be done, and in how many different ways, within the formal straitjacket. These sixty leave one hungry for sixty more.… (mer)