Our interview took place via email, where I asked Cole about this impressive collection, how he chose each sonnet, and why the form has such a magnetic hold on all of us.

He now lives in Boston and currently teaches at Claremont McKenna College. A professor of poetry, Cole has taught at Ohio State University, Harvard University, and Smith College. He has served as the executive director of the Academy of American Poets (1982-1988) and poetry editor of The New Republic (2010-2014). Henri Cole is the author of eleven collections of poetry, including Blizzard (2020) Touch: Poems (2011) LA Times Book Prize finalist Pierce the Skin: Selected Poems 1982-2007 (2010) Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize winner Blackbird and Wolf (2007) and Pulitzer Prize finalist and Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award winner Middle Earth (2003). Each one of the sonnets in this collection, taken from the last thirty years of his work, has his signature: raw, powerful, gritty emotion encased in elegant prose, each one unique, apart from their structure. Cole has been writing sonnets since his days in college, and his expansive collection has recognizable characteristics. He’s certainly exercised his literary muscles in this area. “The lean, muscular body of the sonnet frees me to be simultaneously dignified and bold,” Cole says in the book’s afterword. Landscapes of earth, sky, and water are the backdrop for emotions and desire, punctuated with unique fragrances and tastes that bring life to their sonnet form. Henri Cole brings memory and emotion to life on the page in Gravity and Center: Selected Sonnets, 1994-2022.

Middle earth henri cole