Sleeplessness

Paul Hetherington has created in SLEEPLESSNESS a travelogue of waking dreams, touring the meanders of the body and of the mind from three to six a.m. Well known for his prose poetry, in this collection he utilizes the page as a visual analogue for ruminations and sensations that arrive in waves, the slight stanzas moving delicately yet relentlessly down and across the page. In four sections, the poems travel far and wide, mapping the night as though it were one of Calvino's invisible cities. Rich in allusion (TALE OF GENJI, THE PILLOW BOOK, Bashō), spare yet lush in language, SLEEPLESSNESS entices the reader to risk traversing the dark in order to partake of its mysteries. Holly Iglesias Author of BOXING INSIDE THE BOX: WOMEN'S PROSE POETRY and SLEEPING THINGS In Paul Hetherington's SLEEPLESSNESS, two lovers traverse a landscape-at once tangible and metaphoric-of insomnia, intimacy, desire, and language. In short lines tight with the tension of waiting, and stanzas like steps between sleep or the moments between touch, this book-length poem explores the 'wildness within our bodies.' Spanning cultures, eras, and mythologies, Hetherington's striking images crackle with electricity, offering shocks of recognition, the page tightening 'as if it's a sail.' We are passengers on this boat of dreams, adrift on the waves of his words, recognizing ourselves in the landscape, its powerful and arduous 'love of betweenness.' Kristin Sanders Author of THIS IS A MAP OF THEIR WATCHING ME, and ORTHOREXIA, and CUNTRY