State Sonnets
Published October 2009
sunnyoutside
Buffalo, NY
56 pages
These days, when many people think of sonnets, they often scrunch up their noses, conjuring up images of Shakespeare moldering away in his grave. They might regard any poem in a form (such as a sonnet) warily from afar, then poke it with a long stick, the way you might poke a roadkilled raccoon in the eye. Friends, I am here to tell you, Not so! The sonnet is very much alive and relevant to our Facebook-oriented ways.
The book is comprised of twenty-three sonnets, each about a different U.S. state (with the exception of two Canadian provinces and one U.S. territory). The poems are postcards sent back from love affairs and road trips, from Alcatraz and Cape Cod. Each state is one I've actually visited (with the exception of New Jersey—see the bottom of this page), although several were only for a brief time or merely driving through. The book, therefore, examines both the pleasures and pains of wanderlust, and the thoughts we carry with us no matter the landscape.
I've always enjoyed traveling, and began this project about nine years ago, when I first became interested in sonnets. Writing poems in a form is very challenging at first, as external (and arbitrary) rules are applied to the poem. The first several sonnets I wrote were awful. I wrote about ten of them that first year, and only two remain in the final book, after heavy revision. Slowly, they got better, as I read more sonnets, and understood more how a good sonnet was supposed to operate. I never focused on this project intensely, but it seemed every year a few would leak out, until I realized I had a tenable collection. Some of the states—Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota—needed to be rewritten several times over the course of the years, and other states remain locked doors for me, no matter how many times I approached them. (Curse you, Michigan! Confound you, Tennessee!)
Each poem features an illustration to accompany it, created by Kevin Charles Kline. I think the book looks beautiful, and that's entirely due to the efforts of David McNamara at sunnyoutside. I'm very proud of the final product, and I appreciate his willingness to take a risk on this book, especially given many people's initial reactions to sonnets as described above.
You can order State Sonnets from sunnyoutside, Amazon.com, Small Press Distribution, and Powell's.
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Press
I'm grateful to several places that have given the book some publicity:
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Blurbs
I also now fully appreciate how difficult it is to write back-cover copy, to summarize a book into a single sentence yet fully describe it. David and I went back and forth through several drafts to come up with the final, official description:
In State Sonnets, B.J. Best takes the venerable poetic form on a road trip, speeding down highways of romance, regret, longing, and sex on a tour that lustily wanders into a collection of fourteen-line postcards—pushpins that map the arcs and angles of love and travel.
And some fellow poets said some very kind things about the book:
"B.J. Best’s State Sonnets certainly have as much to do with states of mind as they do with states on the map—and from both perspectives the scenery is nothing short of memorable. These beautifully crafted poems meander at their own intricate pace from California (Alcatraz) to New York (Niagara Falls), pausing at more than a dozen unlikely points between and beyond, including an unforgettable stopover at Mead Lake, Wisconsin. With this collection we are clearly traveling through familiar and fragile emotional territory—a journey deeply worth taking." —Marilyn Taylor, Poet Laureate of Wisconsin and author of Going Wrong
"Wielding an atlas of the heart, a ‘compass drawn toward injured birds,’ and stiletto-sharp diction honed from hallowed alchemy, B.J. Best embarks on an Odyssean journey through lands laden with memory and love, the ache of wanderlust tailing him around every corner on this strange, lovelorn road." —Charles Nevsimal, editor of Centennial Press
"The place is but one place the imagination finds itself on tour with Mr. Best and company; another is a keen state of awareness of how landscape—semitropical, urban, rural, pastoral, urban-rural (there aren’t adjectives enough)—affects when, in fact, homage is paid to texture, as does here the poet—lovingly." —Karl Elder, author of The Geocryptogrammatist’s Pocket Compendium of the United States
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imagining new jersey
it’s the garden state, sure, what with the swamps
and suburbs blooming tropical beneath a canopy
of smog. we presume that someone wants
to live there, drinking beer, frittering at a factory,
but this is my story: right now, she’s at newark
international, dragging her suitcase like a mailbox
full of old clothes. maybe she’s watching planes cut thin arcs
of air like shepherds’ crooks as they herd their flocks
of clouds, sheepish and gray. i’m tired of gardens
of time zones; she’s tired from jet lag and planes fueled by luck
and aerodynamics. her perfume hangs like a charm,
and when she gets home, i’ll ask (before discarding
her tickets), “how was new jersey?” as she turns to pluck
the dead blossoms from the garden of my arms.
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iowa
the stones of gravel roads there tick like eggs,
while the wind is an old man, wheezing and comical,
finding nowhere he can sit down. he begs
to be left alone, to play his harmonica
of cornleaves the way he used to, before
the interstate couldn’t distinguish what cheer
from williamsburg. knock it off. take two more
aspirin with your ethanol. tonight is clear
as a gaze, and the fields are dark chessboards:
better move your tractor. god will take man.
—i want to kiss her then rip up her passport,
saying, the arc de triomphe can be damned;
let’s drive to where dust fogs the stars.
listen. there’ll be music. we’ll hum a few bars.
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