#Bookreview of 365 Sonnets: Celebrating Each Day with a "Little Song"
By: Paul Buchheit
Publisher: Books by Paul B
Publication Date: May 19, 2025
ISBN: 979-8992339604
Reviewed by: Rebecca Jane Johnson
Review Date: July 2, 2025
Do you like to celebrate “Play God Day?” How about “Social Justice Day?” Or “Making Life Beautiful Day?” Every day of the year receives a special, official designation, and Paul Buchheit’s collection of poetry, 365 Sonnets: Celebrating Each Day with a “Little Song” honors these occasions with sonnets. These poems celebrate perceiving deeper meanings and making new discoveries in the unique quality of each day. Words ring with delight, humanity, meaning, emotional strength, depth, and character. Fans of Shakespeare, Alice’s adventures in wonderland, and Dante’s Divine Comedy will appreciate the multiple references to these classics. Plus, the poet’s love for language is infectious.
Each sonnet is accompanied by artwork that offers an ekphrastic dimension to the reading experience. These images invite the reader to engage in contemplation. Stay quiet. Ruminate. Clearly, this is a volume that values introspection over judgment. Art styles featured here include water colors, photographs, drawings, impressionistic, surreal, renaissance, and much more. This collection appreciates a relationship between art and poetry that enhances the reading experience.
Some of the poems, such as “Wisdom of a Fool” read like parables or stories; they are accessible and inspiring. Many of the sonnets offer useful social commentary, helping readers to reconsider humanity in the face of injustice, cell phones, social media, hatred, fear, and pride. But even if the human drama heats up, we can celebrate the sonnet’s structure: 14 lines, iambic pentameter, and an envelope rhyme scheme, and it is okay to deviate slightly with enjambment and surprise.
The poet delivers insightful lines. Powerful images stay with the reader. No day is ordinary because each day of the year gives us some reason to sing.
March 29 is “Smoke and Mirrors” Day, and the narrator of the poem here asks and answers “And what am I? A brief primordial squeal of lust” proffering a self-deprecating quip on the smallness of an individual compared to the vastness of the universe.
Before reading this book, I didn’t know that November 1 was called “World Vegan Day,” and here Buchheit pairs it with artwork from 1566 by Flemish painter Joachim Beuckelaer entitled “Girl with Vegetables.” The bold colors and abundant fruits add to the humorous tone of the poem that proclaims, “the true fruitarian won’t kill a plant!”
These poems embolden a reader to nurture a deeper appreciation for the sonnet form and for fine art. Each day, in any year, a poem can be read aloud to grown-ups and children alike, in the classroom, or on the college quad. April 28 is “Poetry Reading Day” and Buchheit inspires readers to forgo life’s battles and seek out that which is “imparting poetry in lieu of poison.” The promise of poetry is that it is “destined to bequeath upon the world his dulcet harmony.”
Quill says: 365 Sonnets: Celebrating Each Day with a "Little Song" educates, entertains, and encourages a reader to sigh and smile with delight, reminding us just how easy it can be for our anxious minds to be soothed with song.
For more information about 365 Sonnets: Celebrating Each Day with a "Little Song," please visit the author's website at: booksbypaulb.com.
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