Nicholas Korn — poet, playwright, filmmaker and electronic composer — meticulously blends the classic and contemporary through his seven-volume book series and YouTube channel, “The Wild Sonnets.”
Korn started in 2016 with The Wild Sonnets: Volume I (1-100), a self-published collection through the print-on-demand publisher, Book Baby. Sensitive to numerology, 100 sonnets per book was not a coincidence for the poet, as he set out to have at least that in the first book alone when he started writing for it.
Korn posted the first video on his YouTube channel in April of last year, which consisted of him reading Wild Sonnets 140, 458 and 669. This was around the time that the poet decided to get serious about bringing his work to the digital world of social media. One year later, Korn’s YouTube channel has reached the milestone of 100,000 views. A testament to the power of poetry as an art form with the ability to be both engaging and immediately accessible, Korn’s Wild Sonnets have reshaped the mold and brought the sonnet form to life with his videos.
Now, with the release of The Wild Sonnets: Volume VII (601-700) in September 2024 and The Wild Sonnets: Volume VIII (701-800) set to release in August 2025, Korn is soaring to new heights.
Korn’s writing process is unique. His writing process consists of getting up as early as 4 a.m. and writing one stanza for the day. With two stanzas equaling a completed poem, he has material for a new book every year from this simple practice. His mantra: “If you worry about the next poem, the next book will take care of itself,” Korn tells CityBeat.
Initially setting out to create a shareable body of work, Korn used Instagram as the vessel through which viewers could live through his work with him. “It’s an opportunity to create an experience that you’re bringing someone into,” he says. One of the most popular videos on his account — with over 25,000 views — is “Wild Sonnet No. 728.”
“Tumult and turbine, the roar around us / Will have its say, will insist that falling / Is flight and the hammer is Heaven’s finger / Pounding,” Korn writes in the sonnet. His body of work touches on all the dichotomies of the human situation — from love to life to death — which he is unafraid to deliver in a way that leaves viewers pondering some difficult questions.
“When I put a poem into the sequence [that is] going to be the next book, I always have to have a strong feeling that there’s a moment in that poem that comes alive,” he says. These moments can be found throughout the readings he posts on his YouTube channel, creating an authentic listening and viewing experience that makes the poetry feel that much more alive.
Korn has been writing poetry since he was in high school. “That was quite a while ago, but I had always wanted to create my own variation or version of the sonnet form,” he explains. Now, he has fully reinvented the sonnet form, breathing new life into poetry in a digital age.
While the traditional sonnet form is three quatrains (four-line stanzas) and then a couplet, Korn’s sonnets split this form down the middle, resulting in two stanzas with seven lines each. Recognizing the classical sonnet form while breaking the mold to make it his unique variation makes for an encapsulating read, allowing those who interact with his work to step inside the poetry with Korn.
One of the most unique aspects of Korn’s poetry is its accessibility. The Wild Sonnets YouTube channel provides an immersive experience for poetry devotees who seek both an auditory and visual experience. By simply posting the poem, viewers can read it and give a response. Korn does not stray from maintaining a sense of mystery within his works, though. “These are meant to be slightly difficult to read,” he explains. “People want to hear what it sounds like, how [they] should be hearing it. But if I’m at a reading, people want to see it.” Through his videos, Korn effectively pairs these scenarios together so that viewers have both sides of the experience.
After seven volumes and over 700 sonnets, this process does become trickier than in the beginning. Managing such a large catalog takes precision and some creative thinking when it comes to maintaining original material. Korn has taken advice from those around him to combat this challenge. “A friend of mine put these two words before me and said, ‘An artist gets to a point where they have to consider both of these.’ When you start out, you’re focused on the creation of your work,” he says. “After you reach a certain point, you have to also start working on the curation of creation.”
For the past nine years, Korn has both created and curated his work to the tune of nearly 1,000 sonnets, and he does not plan to stop anytime soon. As he continues to cultivate this digital space where poetry can thrive, he is only emboldened when it comes to the future of The Wild Sonnets.
The closest thing to a conclusion in Korn’s body of work is Wild Sonnet No. 234 — labeled on his YouTube channel as “My Favorite in the Series” and described by Korn as his “tombstone poem.” He reads the sonnet in a video from December 2024, as it goes, “I know there comes a moment to the soul / When it is ready to lay the burdens / Of the body down — ready to set the senses / Free like a sparkling of sparrows, sudden / And lush from a leaf-laden tree… Glory in what’s gone, to which reason must resign, / Glory in what comes out of desire or design, / Glory in all this minute makes as mine.”
Visit wildsonnets.com to learn more about Nicholas Korn’s work.
This story is featured in CityBeat’s April 16 print edition.
This article appears in Apr 16-29, 2025.
