Dora Malech

The American Sonnet: An Anthology of Poems and Essays, edited by Dora Malech and Laura T. Smith, is ideal for those who simply enjoy poetry as well as those engaged in formal study.

I no longer teach literature so my interest in this book is as a reader rather than an educator. What appealed to me was a combination of the variety of sonnets and the variety of critical approaches. I sat down a few times and just read some of the poems, though admittedly I like to read them slowly and take time after each to think about them. By having all of the poems together I was able to do this easily without getting sidetracked. I also took a few of the essays that immediately attracted my attention and read them while referring back to the poems. In my electronic review copy this wasn't quite as easy, but in the final copy there will be links between poems mentioned and the essays, so it will be much easier then. I admit to being old fashioned and preferring a bound copy for this type of reading, but that is just me.

I have read a number of books in the past few years that have a poem and an essay about that poem together. Those are wonderful for diving deeper into that one poem (and for learning how to do your own dive into other poems) but it doesn't speak to larger themes and trends between poems, styles, or eras. I liked having essays that were making larger points about the sonnet (and poetry more generally) with references to poems in the anthology that illustrated their points. I learned a lot about the sonnet as a form (a constantly changing form, it turns out) as well as about many of these particular sonnets.

Thinking back on my teaching days, I would have considered this for an upper-level course on the sonnet, but I wouldn't have made my students buy it if we were going to only spend a couple of weeks on it. That said, I would have incorporated some of the essays and poems into a lower-level course. This would also make an excellent addition to a reading list for study on what makes a canon, what is excluded, and why inclusivity is important.

I would recommend this to anyone with an interest in poetry. Whether you want to work your way through it steadily or just have it handy for when you're in the mood, it is designed to be effective either way. It would also be well worth considering for adoption in some courses.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.… (mais)