Insomnia

by Edward Vidaurre, Daniel García Ordaz (Editor), Katherine Hoerth (Introduction)

In his second collection of poetry, Edward Vidaurre, an emerging voice in Latino lit, offers new poems focusing on--and inspired by--bouts of insomnia, death, grief, loss, love, desire, and the vivid dream-like imagery that a lack of sleep creates. With an introduction by award-winning poet Katherine Hoerth, editor at Lamar University Press.Pick up this book on those weird and wonderful nights when it’s 2:07 a.m. and the waning echoes of yesterday’s shattered dreams and sprightly nightmares reverberate madly against the thickly transparent rays of the moon. In this collection of poems, Edward Vidaurre captures the lingering accusations and celebrations of the night that mingle with the fresh affirmations of the morning through poems filled at times with umbrage and desperation and at others with the sort of devilish charm that has come to define his candid wit. Like a bad dream that won’t go away or a good dream that just makes one’s day Vidaurre’s new collection, Insomnia, rouses us with a twitch and spilt coffee jerk and lulls us with knowing nods to those moments of clarity and opaqueness, of sweetness and acrimony, of haunting realism that can’t help but keep us awake for just one more poem.

Genres: Poetry

54 pages, Paperback

First published May 13, 2014

Reviews

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

From El Zarape Press comes Insomnia, the latest collection of poetry by South Texas arts promoter Edward Vidaurre. This volume explores every moonlit nook and cranny of the insomniac night — visions both nightmarish and beautiful brought on by lack of sleep—and the coffee-fueled, bleary-eyed morning that comes close on its heels. The poems he discovers in the borderland between wakefulness and slumber are full of startling images, purgatories brimming with fingertips and thighs, rivers and blood, howls and laughter, ghosts and the afterimages of bright smiles. From formal to experimental, Vidaurre’s irrepressible, unique voice echoes in verse that only a barrio poet could compose.

[Kirby · Rating 5 out of 5]

What struck me first about Edward Vidaurre’s “Insomnia: Love Poems” is the variety of styles and inspirations that have found their way in. From prose poem to sestina, the poet howls like Ginsberg and dances like Rumi through verses of love and longing, sadness and joy, social commentary and image-driven associations. There really is just as much of Sufi-esque ecstacy in here as there is Beatnik cynicism. It makes for an imbalanced yet heady combination—which is just the right blend for a collection that comes from the particular consciousness that exists between dreaming and daylight.

The poem “Sleep Apnea” opens the collection on a moment of physical unease and metaphysical imbalance, which lets you know right off that this book is going to take you out of any normal patterns of awareness. We’re not asleep, but we’re not totally awake yet either, and moving from one poem to the next is a journey that echoes the smooth but seemingly random shifting from one dream to another over the course of a night. Vidaurre’s language slides seamlessly between English and Spanish, but even when I don’t understand the vocabulary, I never felt lost for the emotion. These poems are rich with shadows, echoes of music and language and explorations of love that carry through the dark.

The book’s subtitle is “Love Poems,” but don’t be fooled by that term’s basic association. There is romantic love here, but also so much more: parental devotion, physical affection and sexual desire, social injustices, psychological questioning, and the simple pleasures of everyday living. As Katherine Hoerth says in the book’s introduction: “These poems illustrate what life is like when you live with your eyes open, bloodshot and always awake.” Always awake, for better or worse, and Edward Vidaurre is celebrating every shadowed minute of it. It was a pleasure to take this sleepless, poetic journey with him.

[Rodney Gomez · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the finest poets now working in the lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas.

[P.W. Covington · Rating 5 out of 5]

excellent follow up to "Barrio..."
These poems are crafted through experience and echo with the writer's own truth.