Sonnets: Subtropical and Existential

When Weirton Steel was powerful and poured Columns of smoke and fumes into the air North of Martins Ferry in the valley And orange water tumbled from its sluices Into an umber river far below I was a boy. -Sonnet I, lines 1-6 The one hundred sonnets in this volume carry us beyond the author's boyhood into a voyage of adult concerns but also playfulness, love of art, and intimations of Paradise. They affirm in many ways a nobility Wallace Stevens thought was hard to find in contemporary poetry.