To Hell With Sleep

Author: Anselm Berrigan

Publisher: Letter Machine Editions (2009)

Anselm Berrigan gives us a fresh dose of his discordant mind music. To Hell With Sleep was written by the poet in the first months after the birth of his daughter, mostly during brief periods of time when he was half-awake or less so, letting the poetry be unthought within its vehicle of eight seven-line slanting stanzas per session, of which there were nine. The impulse driving the writing was to let sounds-turning-toward-words follow from the intensified state of consciousness the arrival of this baby initiated. No prescience, reflection, computer tricks, formal appropriation, or plotting of any kind was used in the writing of this work. Joy, fear, humor, sound, bafflement and recognition-in-exchange-for-recognition were the instruments.