The Hitchcock Sequence
A sequence of 53 sonnets, one for each of Alfred Hitchcock’s films. I had been experimenting for a time with writing persona poems, primarily in the form of slant-rhymed Italian sonnets, and had written one in the voice of the second Mrs. DeWinter from Hitchcock’s 1940 film version of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca. This led me to thinking about other possible Hitchcock films as sources for poems, which led to the idea for this project. I have been re-watching every Hitchcock film I’ve seen plus watching several for the first time. Hitchcock himself was a master of form, creating perfectly tuned studio pictures over the course of five decades. My sonnets are re-imaginations of these films, using the characters and situations to explore Hitchcock’s central themes of morality, love, free will, attraction, and death.
“Hitchcock loves to be misunderstood, because he has based his whole life around misunderstandings.” - Francois Truffaut
The Thirty-Nine Steps
Originally Published in The Atlantic, Fiction 2011 Issue
The Birds
Originally Published in The Atlantic, Fiction 2011 Issue
The Farmer’s Wife
Originally Published in Fringe Magazine
The Manxman
Originally Published in Fringe Magazine
The Skin Game
Originally published in Unsplendid
Rebecca
Originally published in Cortland Review
Young and Innocent
Originally published in Cortland Review