Cohort

This collection explores territory where poems haven't dared to venture--the toxic side of the Information Age as it veers out of control. Its three-poem introduction and book-length sonnet sequence draw inspiration from the sonnet's origins to update it for the Digital Age. Linked from its earliest days with legal proceedings and a modern psychology of conflicted love, the sonnet held together what wanted to fly apart. Acknowledging this tradition of warring but tightly bound forces, Fried re-conceives the contemporary sonnet as an arena where fragments of self and samples of lingo play off against one another. And coloring these contests is a love intrigue that implicates the reader.