night thoughts
70 dream poems & notes from an analysis
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, blood red, 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…
SARAH ARVIO, the author of Cry Back My Sea, night thoughts: 70 dream poems & notes from an analysis, Sono: cantos, and Visits from the Seventh, and the translator of Federico García Lorca (Poet in Spain), is a recipient of the Rome Prize as well as fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Bogliasco and Guggenheim foundations, among other honors. For many years a translator for the United Nations in New York and Switzerland, she has taught poetry at Princeton and Columbia. She lives in New York City.
saraharvio.com