Translator: Jennifer Moxley

Poetry | $15 ($12 direct from UDP)
Smyth-sewn. 120 pp, 5.5 x 8 in.
ISBN 978-1-933254-42-5
Distribution: SPD
Series: Dossier

Sleep is the loam of dreams, the material in which they grow. But it is also something more: something hidden, made obscure by the accumulation of images—a sort of grand dream which, because of its intense and manifold nature, is undecipherable. Compared to sleep, dreams offer us a free, easy, almost anodyne, show. Sleep abides from the start in the interior tissue out of which we are formed. Moments of astonishment, precious passages filled with rapid, disconnected symbols—light birds like late evening swallows—a single swallow still squawking overhead, halfway to sleep.

Sleep's Powers is funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. 

Born in Besançon, France in 1936, Jacqueline Risset has published many books of poetry as well as literary essays. She was one of the editors of Tel Quel, and is well-known for her translations of Dante’s Commedia (1985-90, fifth edition 2006). Her most recent book is Traduction et mémoire poétique. Dante, Scève, Rimbaud, Proust, which won the Award of the Académie Française in 2007. She teaches French literature and is President of Centro di Studi Italo-francesi at the Università degli Studi di Roma III. Sleep’s Powers was originally published in French under the title Puissances du Sommeil by Éditions du Seuil in September 1997.

 

 

 

Jennifer Moxley poet, translator, was born in San Diego, California in 1964. Her poem “Behind the Orbits” was chosen by Robert Creeley for inclusion in The Best American Poetry 2002. She has been the poetry editor for The Baffler magazine since 1997 and a contributing editor of The Poker magazine since 2003. Moxley teaches poetry and poetics at the University of Maine.