Insomnia

1. Have you ever had trouble sleeping? What sensations or feelings come to mind when thinking about that experience? Probably none of those sensations are in this poem. What’s in there instead? What tone or mood does the poem evoke in your mind? Can you connect that feeling to insomnia?
2. Each stanza begins with the refrain “If I could sleep…” What effect does the repetition have on the way you experience the poem? From the title, we know that there’s an implied “but I can’t sleep” that follows. What sort of details might emerge in a poem that begins, “If I could stay awake…”?
3. The speaker’s willingness to trade her physical comfort for a good sleep is illogical. Would you sleep on an iron bed without a mattress? Why do you think the speaker might be willing to do such a thing? What does it tell you about how she is feeling?
4. For a poem about discomfort, this has a lot of fun in it: brass-playing philosophers, a game of sleep dancing, a skylight on the floor. Try reciting the poem as if it’s a hilarious joke you’re telling a friend. Now try reciting it as if you are half-asleep yourself, so that these strange events are almost a part of a dream. What images or lines come forward when you read the poem in these two radically different ways?
5. Think of some sort of physical discomfort that you have experienced: the itch of a mosquito bite, perhaps, or a muscle cramp in your toe. Now think of a different physical discomfort that you would gladly trade for the first one. Try to make a trade that’s counter-intuitive, one that most people wouldn’t make.

Useful Links

1. A very informative article about insomnia: https://www.sleepfoundation.org/insomnia/content/what-causes-insomnia
2. Insomnia seems to be a common problem for poets. Here are a few other poems on the subject:

• By Dante Rosetti: https://poetryinvoice.ca/read/insomnia
• By Fran Lock: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/118578/on-insomnia
• By Alicia Ostriker: https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/insomnia