Defying trends by writing scrupulously sculpted poems that revel in form and are unabashedly beautiful, playful and smart, Star Black, one of the most popular poets in the New York poetry scene, kicks off Melville House Publishing’s New York Poets series by focusing her edgy intellect on the sonnet.

Ghostwood presents 48 chiseled gems that show off the many reasons why she is considered one of the leading practitioners of the sonnet writing in English today.

Black’s poems celebrate nature as well as life in the city. They link touching characters and explore the boundaries of love. They keen in grief and anger — as in her searing poem about the WTC attacks, “Perfect Weather” — and they bound into hope, as in the quirky beauty, “Asylum.”

In short, Black — who is also renowned as a photo-journalist whose work has appeared regularly in The New York Times and elsewhere — is the perfect example of the kind of poet highlighted by the New York Poets series: a poets’ poet who also has a huge popular following in Manhattan, and whose work is ready to be appreciated by a larger international audience.