Gilbert Sorrentino, Prince of Orange

Next in my poetry gratitude series is Gilbert Sorrentino (1929-2006), who is better known as a fiction writer but whom I first came to know as a poet.

The Orangery, Sorrentino’s book of sonnets, came to me at an opportune time as I was writing my own collection of fourteen-liners. I was surprised and delighted by the quirky playfulness of these poems, each of which contains the word “orange” in various guises, including “orange” as a verb and the “orange sombrero” of Rimbaud. A master of language games, Sorrentino continues the centuries-old dialogue of the sonnet with its own history.

Without further orange, here is “Sappho in Paris,” a set of four sonnets by Gilbert Sorrentino.