{"product_id":"night-thoughts-isbn-9780375712227","title":"night thoughts","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn 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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 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 to make herself forget. Arvio’s explorations lead her back to her younger self—and to a life-changing understanding that will fascinate readers.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e An utterly original work of art and a groundbreaking portrayal of the power of dream interpretation to resolve psychic distress, this stunning book illumines the poetic logic of the dreaming mind; it also shows us, with surpassing poignancy, how tender and fragile is the mind of an adolescent girl.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003ePraise for Sarah Arvio's \u003ci\u003eNight Thoughts \u003c\/i\u003efrom \u003ci\u003eThe Washington Independent Review of Books\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"Who does not love the nighttime mind with its full disclosure, lack of censor—\u003cbr\u003emetaphor, innuendo, enchantment, intensity? Sarah Arvio breaks the codes \u003cbr\u003ethrough psychoanalysis and coverts her thoughts to poems. This is a book of \u003cbr\u003emutual discovery for the poet and reader, and most fascinating are the notes \u003cbr\u003ewhich untangle the unapparent worlds. Among the many successes here is that \u003cbr\u003eArvio is too busy puzzling out psyche and prosody to think about moving to \u003cbr\u003esensationalism—but sensational they are—all our horror stories of guilt and \u003cbr\u003eshame—memories that changed shape early on. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis book is influential because it is one of a kind. With all the books written \u003cbr\u003etoday, one so unique with such an alternate view of poetry is almost a game \u003cbr\u003echanger in the field. There are 70 set pieces of exactly 14 lines. We know how \u003cbr\u003eimportant consistency is to hold tumult. Discipline is essential—and well done, it \u003cbr\u003ebecomes admirable. Never have symbols had so many faces, but what I like is \u003cbr\u003ethere are no overt moral questions which would stain the search, and Arvio’s lack \u003cbr\u003eof punctuation alludes to this. These are works of strong feelings ringed by \u003cbr\u003emessages saying we can’t control our dreams but we can control the poem. From \u003cbr\u003ethe uncomfortable silence of the psyche’s tundra, Arvio wrings out her truth.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003ethree fish\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003ethe mother of the boy I will marry\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eshe takes the knife \u0026amp; she turns it over\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eon the cutting board beside the white fish\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003elaying potato peels over the fish\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eeach white fish is striped with one red stripe\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ethe red stripe marring its delicate flesh\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003emy white dress is spattered with bright pink blood\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eall the white lace is spattered with my blood\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eshe hides the three fish from the wedding guests\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ecovering them up with potato peels\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eshe’s hiding the fish from their fish shame\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eshe doesn’t hide me I can’t hide myself\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eshe hides the three fish so no one can see \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ecovering them up with potato peels\u003c\/i\u003eSARAH ARVIO is the author of two previous books of poetry, \u003ci\u003eVisits from the Seventh\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eSono\u003c\/i\u003e. She has won a number of awards and honors, including the Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and Guggenheim and Bogliasco Fellowships. For many years a translator for the United Nations in New York and Switzerland, she has also taught poetry at Princeton.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ewww.saraharvio.com\/arvio\/home.html\u003cp\u003e\"airplane\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u0026amp; now an airplane lands in the field\u003cbr\u003e \u0026amp; incinerates I use this strange word\u003cbr\u003e when I tell the dream not flames or burns\u003cbr\u003e there was a rusty barrel out in back\u003cbr\u003e we called the incinerator strange word\u003cbr\u003e for an old barrel where we burned the trash\u003cbr\u003e I took my diaries out there in back\u003cbr\u003e in the brightdamp where a spatter of rain\u003cbr\u003e fell in the ashes \u0026amp; striking matches\u003cbr\u003e lit the edges \u0026amp; watched as the pages\u003cbr\u003e curled charred \u0026amp; would not burn I said my life\u003cbr\u003e burn up my life \u0026amp; for one lifetime\u003cbr\u003e I thought I can stop now \u0026amp; take them back\u003cbr\u003e but no they were burning so I let them burn\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom the author's notes: \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy first real breakthrough was the dream called “airplane.” Describing the explosion of the plane, I used the word \u003ci\u003eincinerate.\u003c\/i\u003e And then I remembered burning the diaries. When I say ‘remembered,’ I don’t mean I recalled something I had thought of now and then over the years. I mean that the memory broke open, shocking me, and I saw that -it—-the -event—-had happened, that I had known of it long before, and then forgotten.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The sudden viewing of a lost traumatic memory happened only a few times during the analysis. ‘Sudden’ means -shocking—-the return of a powerful memory. Other memories came more slowly. I understood later that a traumatic memory lost and then found releases other memories. By ‘breakthrough,’ I mean this was the first time I had the sense that there was more to know about my suffering and that I might be able to find it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"black slip\"\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e I borrow a slip from another girl\u003cbr\u003e a black slip with a lace décolletage\u003cbr\u003e \u0026amp; she accuses me of stealing it\u003cbr\u003e no I say I didn't steal the slip I\u003cbr\u003e borrowed it but no one believes me here\u003cbr\u003e the magistrates are standing near the wall\u003cbr\u003e \u0026amp; they sentence me to a razor death\u003cbr\u003e my executioner has jetblack hair\u003cbr\u003e long \u0026amp; skanky \u0026amp; it swings as he steps\u003cbr\u003e toward me with the razor in his teeth\u003cbr\u003e I'm sporting the black slip in which I'll die\u003cbr\u003e the black slip with the lace décolletage\u003cbr\u003e but then I seize the shining instrument\u003cbr\u003e \u0026amp; zig it through the air \u0026amp; slash his eye\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003eFrom the author's notes:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"black slip\"= black lace slip.  The word décolletage, a low-cut neckline, comes from the French décolleter, which means cut out the neck of, as for a dress, and also cut someone's neck.  Here, I'm the wrongdoer, having stolen the slip, and I'm sentenced to a razor death....\u003cbr\u003e                 \u003cbr\u003eThe razors were anguishing, senseless.  How could god, the gods, creators of life and dreams, inflict them on me in my sleep? In \"shiny foil,\" my molester--as I call him in the dream--is sentenced to be executed with a razor, but by the time I understand that his molesting is a form of love, it is too late to save him.\u003cbr\u003e                 \u003cbr\u003eJust now, as I write, it occurs to me that foil also has another meaning, a literary one:  isn't the molester a foil for my own spurning of love and longing for love? A thing that contrasts with and enhances the qualities of the other.  Here again, foil:  they were foils for each other, the two brothers.  I mingled them together, remembering.  They harmed me; they hurt my life; they did me irreparable harm. And yet, there was something shiny about me and the one I called the cat, as he bent his head and looked in my eyes--out there on the driveway.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Knopf","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46301729423589,"sku":"NP9780375712227","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780375712227.jpg?v=1767733729","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/night-thoughts-isbn-9780375712227","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}