The Secret Reader: 501 Sonnets. Poems by Willis Barnstone. Published by University Press of New England in 1996.
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In a voice at once luminous and brooding, humorous and grave, Willis Barnstone offers an amazing sonnet sequence on his double life-and distinguished career-as a scholar and an artist. While translating the poetry of Borges in the mid-70's, he rediscovered the sonnet's dramatic potential: "It was as if I had discovered the secret of flight, how to let myself go, with faith, fear, and all the forces I could summon up to intensify the clarity of the moment." Thus began what he calls his "eighteen-year drunk on the sonnet." Sensations and experiences from a lifetime among many cultures on many continents inspire sometimes sparkling, sometimes somber, but always piercingly honest meditations: a tea commune in China, "the sky of awful smoke" at Auschwitz, a New York heat wave, a Tangier prostitute, the suicides of his father and brother, Greek seas and skies. The lyricism of the language, the antic humor, and the unblinking scrutiny of difficult questions through a fierce but loving lens make this collection more than the signature of a singular mind: it represents a major revitalization of a dormant poetic form.

"Four of the best things in America are Walt Whitman's Leaves, Herman Melville's Whale, the sonnets of Barnstone's Secret Reader, and my daily Corn Flakes--that rough poetry of the morning."
--Jorge Luis Borges

"A valuable accomplishment, worthy of Borges who acts here as Barnstone's 'master.' These five histories build up into a remarkable modernist testament."
--Edward Hirsch

I am captivated by these sonnets. The free movement of consciousness, the mind operating in the universe, are here the expression of a mature, hugely ranging person, giving these sonnets a poingnancy and wisdom not normally seen. There is art and cunning, form, ruthless honesty, and it is not self-serving."
--Gerald Stern

"The stunning scope, their wonderful irreverence, their slangy, antic humor, their stark realism, and their brave confrontation with the ultimate questions all combine to bring us a worthy life work that is bound to be recognized as a masterpiece."
--Philip Appleman "His range of knowledge informs powerful social, religious and political commentary as he writes about philosophers, poets (especially but not solely Hispanic and Chinese), death from AIDS, Tibet, a Stone Age mummy found in a glacier and, of course, himself ("Do I hurt? No. I'll be / a will-less barn stone cool and on my own"). This prodigious effort offers rewards to grazers and those who read the sonnets in order."
--Publishers Weekly