Acquainted with the Night: Insomnia PoemsLisa Russ Spaar Columbia University Press, 1999 - 183 pages It is the rare individual who has not, at one time or another, been kept awake for hours on end--as the rest of the world, maddeningly, appears to be comfortably lost in the nocturnal world of dreams. Here is a treasury of verse on the rich subject of insomnia--meditations by poets who have sought to describe their own moments of solitude in darkness, when the world's regular bustle of activity and distraction falls away and they are left to contemplate in silence. Acquainted with the Night brings together Emily Dickinson and Elizabeth Bishop, Rimbaud and Sappho, Shakespeare and Shelley--the great poets of the Western literary heritage--on a theme with which each one has been acutely familiar. Lisa Russ Spaar has also unearthed ruminations on the sleepless nights of poets the world over: in a fascinatingly diverse anthology, she has harvested verse from Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Inuit, Vietnamese, Tamil, Yiddish, and Romanian poets, who together present an illuminating display of insomnia's extraordinary and enduring legacy in widely different cultures through the centuries. As these exquisite poems chart a course from solitude, through anxiety, to epiphany, the reader truly learns what it means to be acquainted with the night. |
From inside the book
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... ALEXANDER PUSHKIN Insomnia 24 DANA GIOIA Insomnia 25 CORNELIUS EADY Mirrors at 4 A.M. 26 CHARLES SIMIC What She Said 27 PATUMANAR The Moon 28 GUNNAR EKELÖF Contents VIII FROM The Sleepers 29 WALT WHITMAN Acquainted with the.
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... Sleeper Whispers and Re - Whispers a Magic Charm Against His Wound's Roar 117 STEPHEN MARGULIES Make the Bed 118 STEPHEN CUSHMAN Insomnia 120 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI White Night 122 MARY OLIVER Stars 124 EMILY BRONTË Bright Star 127 JOHN ...
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Contents
Introduction I | 1 |
The Congress of the Insomniacs | 17 |
How can I then return in happy plight | 104 |
PART THREE EPIPHANY AND VISION | 111 |
Relentlessly Lovelorn the NonSleeper Whispers and ReWhispers | 117 |