The sonnet is one of the oldest poetic forms in Western literature, adopted with immortal success by poets as diverse as Dante, Shakespeare, and Robert Frost. In the hands of William Wilborn, the sonnet becomes a powerful vehicle to explore the poignant ironies of history and daily life, the urgencies of love and age, and the heartbreaking truths that lurk behind encounters with art and beauty. These masterfully crafted poems give the ancient sonnet a fresh vibrancy and relevance suitable for the voices and experiences of our time.
The range of Wilborn’s poetic scrutiny is vast, from Anne Frank,
up in her attic, working late,
To finish knowing why she had been there,
Before she heard the jackboots on the stair
to the pain of euthanizing a beloved dog:
We live too long for love of our own kind,
And you too briefly for our endless need
and the stoic courage of an old man who
fishes in green gabardine
Still waters with a heedful hook.
Wilborn is a mature and wise poet, fearlessly fishing in the waters of modern life to retrieve the evasive moments that define the human condition.