18.6.06

Insomnia

Ionarts is happy to continue bringing more original poetry, kindly contributed by Frederick Pollack, author of The Adventure and Happiness, both book-length narrative poems, and whose shorter works have appeared in literary magazines such as The Hudson Review, The Southern Review, Salmagundi, Poetry Salzburg Review, Orbis UK, and the Munich-based Die Gazette. This is his third poem on Ionarts, following Parents of the Just Man, published in March, and Doodling, from May.


Insomnia

When you haven’t slept for two nights
(or for some people, one), you
go through the following day
doing everything you must, and even
feeling everything you should, but with
a time-lag. Impotently
you struggle against it, turn
at this corner, avoid that bore
at the office; regard
the child, the hydrangeas and think
(and as required say) Yes,
they’re beautiful, the day is gorgeous,
but slowly. A kind of film
plays, and you’re in it;
another kind of film
forms on your face, and it’s
your face. And you don’t think of sleep
but of another day
without it, and fear the delay
will increase; for with you locked away
within it, what might the body do
or say? It’s rather like poetry,
where both the talented and untalented
lie, but the talented
(and this is the great secret)
lie more.


by Frederick Pollack

2 comments:

  1. Jens,
    There's no request for comments after the Didone review, but I'll add here:
    --Mr Jenkins told me he had cut 90 minutes (not 45) after the dress rehearsal. But I agree with you, he could have been even freer with the scissors.
    --Brian Cummings was struggling with two roles that were written for a haute-contre rather than a countertenor. He's quite comfortable when he gets a part that's actually written for the latter voice, and managed to get many of his recits transposed up to avoid too many switch-overs into chest register. Still, not a lot of "money notes."
    john w.

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  2. Thank you for clarifying the reason behind some of Mr. Cummings' short- err... comings. The switching between chest and head was indeed an akward affair....

    jfl

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