The Thailand Sonnets

Writing sonnets about life in Thailand may seem a strange thing to do. People don't read poetry much these days, least of all sonnets, so I couldn't expect to attract many readers. The idea came to me in the car, on a long drive home from Isaan. Maybe it was the rhythm of the road that made me think of a verse form with a strict metre - the passing telegraph poles or the seams in the motorway concrete. Whatever, after a hundred kilometres of dum-de-dum-de-dum, I'd come up with the makings of a sonnet about dengue fever, a tropical illness I suffered a couple of years ago. After that I just wrote 37 more, usually while walking down Soi Khao Noi or sitting in the coffee shop at The Chilled, where it's only B25 for an Americano.

I illustrated the sonnets with a few suitable photos. In the paperback these are black and white, but if you have the right ebook reader the digital version comes in colour.

If you've never read a sonnet before, let this be your starting-place. If the experience prompts you to write one of your own, send it in and I'll post it here.

You can get the book as a paperback or an ebook from the Amazon that serves your country, eg Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.

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