ECKLEBURG BOOK CLUB | Night Thoughts

night thoughts

Sarah Arvio

night thoughts

 

In 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.

As a young woman, threatened by disturbing visions, Arvio went into psychoanalysis to save herself. The result is a riveting sequence of dream poems, followed by “Notes.” The poems, in the form of irregular sonnets, describe her dreamworld: a realm of beauty and terror emblazoned with recurring colors and images— gold, bloodred, robin’s-egg blue, snakes, swarms of razors, suitcases, playing cards, a catwalk. The Notes, also exquisitely readable, unfold the meaning of the dreams—as told to her analyst— and recount the enlightening and sometimes harrowing process of unlocking memories, starting with the diaries she burned to make herself forget. Arvio’s explorations lead her back to her younger self—and to a life-changing understanding that will fascinate readers.

An utterly original work of art and a ground- breaking portrayal of the power of dream interpretation to resolve psychic distress, this stunning book illumines the poetic logic of the dreaming mind; it also shows us, with surpassing poignancy, how tender and fragile is the mind of an adolescent girl.

Hardcover: 192 pages
Publisher: Knopf (January 8, 2013) Hardcover
Language: English
Price: $26.95
ISBN-13: 978-0307959553

 


arvioSarah Arvio’s latest book is night thoughts:  70 dream poems & notes from an analysis, a hybrid work:  poetry, essay, memoir.  Her earlier books of poems are Visits from the Seventh and Sono: cantos. She has won the Rome Prize and the Bogliasco and Guggenheim fellowships, among other honors.  For many years a translator for the United Nations in New York and Switzerland, she has also taught poetry at Princeton.  She now lives in Maryland, by the Chesapeake Bay. http://www.saraharvio.com


 

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The Editors
Eckleburg was founded in 2010 as an online and print literary and arts journal. We take our title from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and include the full archives of our predecessor Moon Milk Review. Our aesthetic is eclectic, literary mainstream to experimental. We appreciate fusion forms including magical realist, surrealist, meta- realist and realist works with an offbeat spin. We value character-focused storytelling and language and welcome both edge and mainstream with punch aesthetics. We like humor that explores the gritty realities of world and human experiences. Our issues include original content from both emerging and established writers, poets, artists and comedians such as authors, Roxane Gay, Rick Moody, Cris Mazza, Steve Almond, Stephen Dixon, poets, Moira Egan and David Wagoner and actor/comedian, Zach Galifianakis.