Black Anthem

This book of sonnets—wide-ranging in their investigations of the body, the psyche, metaphysical hunger and its place in human conflict—owes its emotional power to the speed and focus of small songs taking part in a larger conversation. In honor and defiance of tradition, these sonnets turn their gaze outward to ask, is not a song more elusive than our story about it? How might our limits quicken and deepen the question of values? Whatever the anthem, as Bond explores it, something of its music is ever larger than its message, its measures more measureless, its window more capacious than its frame. Paisley Rekdal, author of Animal Eye, says, “Black Anthem is beautiful, smart, and relentlessly probing. Anyone interested in the sonnet tradition must read it.”