The Sleep of Reason

by Gewanter, David

• ISBN13: 9780226289731
• ISBN10: 0226289737
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-10-18
• Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr

Summary

The Sleep of Reasonplunges us into a macabre world where good impulses bring on evil consequencesa world not unlike our own. In David Gewanter's alternately delightful and startling poems, allegory comes alive and stalks a bookstore's musty aisles, comedians eviscerate their families for a laugh, lovers love each other for withholding affection, and theaters collapse on audiences hungry for spectacle. Amidst such surreal subjects, Gewanter's delicate musicality and keen sense of humor sparkle; his inquisition regarding a fallen world becomes a dark comedy of errors haunted by the most unexpected charactersfrom JFK Jr. to Tacitus, Redd Foxx to General Motors, Mariah Carey to 100 rabbits with herpes. An offbeat satire for an off-kilter age,The Sleep of Reasonoffers an incisive guide to moral behavior in an immoral world.

Author Biography

David Gewanter, an associate professor of English at Georgetown University, is the author of In the Belly, which won the John C. Zacharis First Book award from Ploughshares magazine, and co-editor of The Collected Poems of Robert Lowell. He has received a Witter Bynner Fellowship and a Whiting Writers' Award.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	xi
I
A is for Allegory	3	(2)
See Saw	5	(3)
After the Wall	8	(2)
Gag	10	(2)
Jacopone: The Scissors	12	(5)
II
Cobblers Children	17	(2)
Xenia: Stranger/Guest	19	(2)
Chai: 1924-2000	21	(2)
Tacitus: City of Unseens	23	(5)
Catullus VIII	28	(2)
One-Page Novel	30	(2)
Divorce and Mr. Circe	32	(2)
Marriage: Six Primers	34	(4)
Or What You Will	38	(4)
Zero-Account	42	(1)
Convolvulus, a Lullaby	43	(3)
Redd-Pound Slamma	46	(7)
A Lie-Awake Dirge	53	(2)
Revenger Sonnet	55	(1)
Jacopone:House	56	(2)
Y	58	(4)
Traffic of Creations	62	(3)
The Loop: JFK Jr	65	(4)
III
Jacopone: On the Cobbles	69	(5)
Hocus Pocus	74	(5)
Notes	79