Only the Senses Sleep

by Wayne Miller

Poetry. "Wayne Miller's ONLY THE SENSES SLEEP celbrates the transforming power of attentino and distraction, as the perceived dissolves into memory and reverie. 'Moving away from myself//and further... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1930974655
• ISBN13: 9781930974654
• Release Date: October 2001
• Publisher: New Issues Poetry and Prose
• Length: 84 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 6.1" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

A compilation of free-verse poems revolving around the theme of night

Award-winning poet Wayne Miller presents Only the Senses Sleep, a compilation of free-verse poems revolving around the theme of night. From the quiet that pervades a nighttime apartment to silent snowfalls and the ferocity of an ice storm, Only the Senses Sleep sublimely captures a wide range of environmental experiences in the dark that pervade the corners of human consciousness. "November Wind": Immured here / by infinitely minute and endlessly exact details - // Air ink-rolls the water, where far off / a trawler's anchored by a cloudlike net. // A curtain blows through a window, / gray (damp) along the bottom lace. // Cars in the street like hollowed cells, / their passengers naming certain stops // arrivals. To name these arrivals - / a ship, a curtain a face - your soul trailing // like a net. The ice wind cuts through. / Yes, to speak it now, and thus absolve it // like a read word. Or else there's no wind, / just the whipping of your shirt.

A Strong First Book of Poems

Wayne Miller's poems, with steady voice, concise language, distinct images and a nuanced sense of poetic tradition, gives the reader clarity without sacrificing depth. The reader is always spoken to in a human voice (which is rare in contemporary poems), and so we come away from each poem having listened. One of the best first books of poems I've read in quite a while. Highly recommended.