n this remarkable and unique work, award-winning poet Sarah Arvio gives us a memoir about coming to terms with a life in crisis through the study of dreams.
SARAH ARVIO is the author of two previous books of poetry, Visits
from the Seventh and Sono. She has won a number of awards and
honors, including the Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts
and Letters and Guggenheim and Bogliasco Fellowships. For many
years a translator for the United Nations in New York and
Switzerland, she has also taught poetry at Princeton.
www.saraharvio.com/arvio/home.html
Praise for Sarah Arvio's Night Thoughts from The Washington
Independent Review of Books
"Who does not love the nighttime mind with its full disclosure,
lack of censor—
metaphor, innuendo, enchantment, intensity? Sarah Arvio breaks the
codes
through psychoanalysis and coverts her thoughts to poems. This is a
book of
mutual discovery for the poet and reader, and most fascinating are
the notes
which untangle the unapparent worlds. Among the many successes here
is that
Arvio is too busy puzzling out psyche and prosody to think about
moving to
sensationalism—but sensational they are—all our horror stories of
guilt and
shame—memories that changed shape early on.
This book is influential because it is one of a kind. With all the
books written
today, one so unique with such an alternate view of poetry is
almost a game
changer in the field. There are 70 set pieces of exactly 14 lines.
We know how
important consistency is to hold tumult. Discipline is
essential—and well done, it
becomes admirable. Never have symbols had so many faces, but what I
like is
there are no overt moral questions which would stain the search,
and Arvio’s lack
of punctuation alludes to this. These are works of strong feelings
ringed by
messages saying we can’t control our dreams but we can control the
poem. From
the uncomfortable silence of the psyche’s tundra, Arvio wrings out
her truth."
three fish
the mother of the boy I will marry
she takes the knife & she turns it over
on the cutting board beside the white fish
laying potato peels over the fish
each white fish is striped with one red stripe
the red stripe marring its delicate flesh
my white dress is spattered with bright pink blood
all the white lace is spattered with my blood
she hides the three fish from the wedding guests
covering them up with potato peels
she’s hiding the fish from their fish shame
she doesn’t hide me I can’t hide myself
she hides the three fish so no one can see
covering them up with potato peels
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