berrigan and lerner response

i feel that these two books are knee deep in confusion, whether they intend to be or not. this confusion stems from each poet's goal of incorporating the sonnet form into poems that each poet must have known would prove to be challenging. berrigan's poems include characters of whom were some of berrigan's friends, lovers, and inspritations, as well as particular iconic american persons of whom were central figures in the time period berrigan wrote the sonnets. many of berrigan's poems are choppy and very unrefined or unedited-seeming, which probably is not the case as he most likely made this choppy writing the style that was most conducive to his aim at challenging the accepted sonnet form.

i feel lerner's poems are more successful in challenging and refiguring the idea of the sonnet form, though at the same time, like berrigan, the concept of pure confusion takes a strong hold of the reader. Lerner's characters seem to be a bit more elusive to an understanding of the poems, ranging from made up character's like Orlando Duran to repeated mentionings of Matisse. Lerner's book is filled with unique images and lines which keep the reader interested in finding out what exactly the poet might be getting at with the purposful confusion in the rest of the lines and poems. But at the end, at least at a first reading or two, Lerner's book feels over-exaggerated with intended cleverness and wit, rather than providing any kind of solid foundation for a reader to begin and remain on. When finding out what the Lichtenberg Figures were and reading of their relation to fractals, i was not able to clearly notice the similarities that might be found.

I'll admit that upon my initial reading of both the books i was turned off by the irrational juxtaposiiton of images amongst either unknown characters or uncertain messages.