Dr. John Poch, Texas Tech University Professor in the Department of English, discusses the contemporary sonnet and its transmission from Shakespeare and earlier versions of the sonnet. In this lecture, Dr. Poch looks at a variety of sonnets in the way Helen Vendler might, seeing each of them as created by "a working poet - that is, a master of aesthetic strategy." These poets aim for nothing less than creating poems that might be artfully important: now, in ten years, and perhaps even four hundred years later.

This event is part of the Institute's weeklong lecture series commemorating "Shakespeare and his Legacy," made possible by the generous support of the CH Foundation.