It’s 2020, the time of Coronavirus. The poet confronts it and his environment in these 104 sonnets. Armbrust writes sonnets on a variety of themes, primarily addressed to his muse and his lovers. Since 1979, when his first book of poetry went to press, he continues to write, as if he opens a vein to pour his own blood onto the page to do it.

Roger Armbrust, after a career as national news editor of Backstage magazine in New York City and teaching writing at New York Universiy, returned to his hometown of Little Rock, Arkansas, where he has written a novel, published three e-zines, and produced several volumes of poetry, of which this is one.