I dunno, I could read sonnets all day. I can sit down with a whole book of sonnets - the Oxford Book of Sonnets, or Mike Stocks's new book - and the form doesn't grate the way it would with a book of villanelles (or, for that matter, two villanelles in a row). If I find myself thinking, "Oh, no, not another sonnet," I don't blame the sonnet form itself - it's more a matter of how it's used. Certain traits are grating, not necessarily in one lone sonnet, but in one after another. Rigidly regular meter, for example, or heavily end-stopped lines, or a certain predictability in the shape of the argument: first quatrain, second quatrain, here comes the "But" at the beginning of Line 9, etc. Not saying those things are bad in themselves, just that they make the reading of consecutive sonnets feel more monotonous.
I may have a higher threshold than you do for sonnet-monotony, Quincy, but I read Stock's Folly all the way through in one sitting and never once got that, "Oh, no, not another sonnet" feeling. I do get that feeling when I read certain magazines, though, or spend much time at certain workshops. In Stock's sonnets, the content is like the host you came to the party to see, and the form is like, er, the caterer who quietly makes himself useful, bringing food and refilling drinks, but whose face you remember only vaguely the next day. But then, I like sonnets - people who don't will always notice the form and think it's a flaw.
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