About The Wild Sonnets

Reinventing the traditional sonnet form.

As a poet, I have always been deeply connected to the sonnet form, and decided a few years ago to create variation that was both more modern and of my own making. 

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The structure I decided to use is built on two seven line stanzas, each capped with a rhyming couplet. The preceding lines are basically blank verse - meant to echo the feel and fluency of a soliloquy. 

Since writing the first Wild Sonnet in 2016, I have added over 270 to the sequence. When I reach the next 100 poems, I publish them as a individual book and add the new work to a digital version that contains the entire collection. 

This is a lifelong project for me – and although the feel of the poems may shift slightly with time, my dedication to this particular form does not. What the eventual fate of these poems will be is not for me to say, but I hope those who read them will feel that the power of this form has been both honored and expanded.

About Nicholas Korn

Poet of The Wild Sonnets

Nicholas Korn is a poet, playwright, filmmaker and composer. The first volume of Wild Sonnets was published in June 2018, with the second following in October 2019.

His stage play, Delirium’s Daughters, was featured Off-Broadway in 2015, and his film, Revel’s Rivals, won the award for Best Animated Feature at the 2012 Louisville International Festival of Film. In the early aughts, he founded and ran Stage First Cincinnati – a theater company dedicated to the ancient Greeks, Moliere and the occasional Shakespeare.

As an artist, he combines classicism with a curiosity for all things digital – honoring equally the tradition and the trend. 

He has been a member of the Greater Cincinnati arts community for over 30 years.

Readers' Comments on Social Media

This poetry is like listening to classical music. It engages the brain and soul so that they, every once in a while, dance together.
 – Karen N. | Facebook

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I love this! Originality means a lot to me, and creating a poetic form that works, then devoting yourself to it is highly admirable and the wild sonnets I've read are stunningly amazing :).

– Sarosh Z. | Instagram

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Each Wild Sonnet that I've spent time with is compelling – and becomes a devotional outside the standards usually associated with poetry. Nicholas honors the integrity of sonnet structure, elevating and amplifying it to this millennium. 

– Carolyn P. | Instagram

Each of Nicholas Korn's Wild Sonnets is its own being. And yet reading the sonnets in entirety summon to mind an invisible Greek Chorus echoing in the distance, a collective voice reflecting on a life. Holding a mirror to Memory. In the end, the power of these poems perhaps lies in giving one the sense that maybe Truth and Love and Beauty live not in looking back to things lost, or even in understanding death. But rather somewhere, in the urgent understanding of life.

– Cynthia Grow, Visual Artist | Instagram

I have been following Nicholas Korn and The Wild Sonnets on Instagram for over two years. When fourteen lines causes me to stop and reflect it is something special. I find myself reading and thinking until the meaning settles in. I love when someone's thoughts cause me to see in a new way, Wild Sonnets does that for me.​

– Todd S, Sculptor & Painter | Instagram

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I've immensely enjoyed the Wild Sonnets. Korn’s creativity drew me in and made me appreciate not only poetry in general, but the beauty of the sonnet structure.

- Cheryl, McC | Facebook