The sonnet may at first seem like one of those old forms from another time, as in, not relevant to our own time. But it’s in fact a form that keeps getting returned to, in ways that keep morphing, by such recent practitioners as Terrance Hayes, Danez Smith, and Jenny Johnson, to name a few. The fact is that the sonnet has been a site of rebellion – thematically and formally – even as early as Shakespeare. In this seminar, Carl Phillips will lead participants in looking at sonnets old and very new, by writers including Airea D. Matthews, Wanda Coleman, Adrienne Rich, Henri Cole, Ada Limón, Eduardo C. Corral, Cathy Park Hong – among many others. The session will also look at how the definition of the sonnet itself has changed and why.

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