Marilyn McEntyre on sleeplessness and the night vigil
I drift off happily at bedtime, but now wake between three and four in the morning. I like to wake early, but not quite that early. At that hour, I’m…
Tag: literature of sleeplessness
From “Rituals” by Cees Nooteboom
“I sleep very little,” said Philip Taads. He was sitting in the same place as yesterday and wore a plain blue kimono. “Sleeping is senseless. A peculiar form of absence…
From “The Mighty Dead: Why Homer Matters” by Adam Nicolson
So uncatchable is Odysseus that when the poem describes his state of mind, you can never be certain where to find him. When he is lying in bed, anxious and…
Heraclitus on sleep: from “The Poetry of Thought”, George Steiner
Grammatical construction can make of an apparent riddle or paradox a font of expanding intuition: “Death is all things we see awake; all we see asleep is sleep.” Ring-structures spiral…
Flies Like Thoughts – Innokenty Annensky (1855-1909)
Flies Like Thoughts Flies, like black thoughts, have not quit me all day … – A N Apukhtin I’ve grown weary of sleeplessness, dreams. Locks of hair hang over…
Séamus Sweeney 