March 2, 2012: Nancy O Graham: Somniloquy Cycle - Red Rowboat

NANCY O GRAHAM: SOMNILOQUY CYCLE – RED ROWBOAT

 Nancy Oarneire Graham creates somniloquies, or recorded sleeptalk, by repetitively reading a short text—whether from a children's story, a work of nonfiction, or her own dreams—until she begins to fall half asleep. In the twilight state between waking and sleeping, known as the hypnagogic state, visions, half-formed thoughts, and stray words begin to interrupt those read from the page, opening a window onto this borderland.

1. ROW, ROW, ROW
Opens with a lot of goofing around, followed by a singing somniloquy using the lyrics of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.”

2. OVER TO UNCLE BOB’S ISLAND
Until very recently, people didn’t get across on boat, so I would ferry them in my rowboat, which was called The Red Baron, which was not the name I gave it. My dad named it.
This source text is itself a somniloquy that came out of a session in which I was reading the following text excerpted from Ervin Laszlo’s A Systems View of the World: “Until very recently, contemporary western science was shaped by a mode of thinking which placed rigorous, detailed knowledge above all other considerations.”

3. THE FEROCIOUS LAND OF THE BEASTS
A dream: Ada is out in a rowboat without a life jacket heading into the big lake. It is starting to rain. Her hair is short like mine was when I first got my rowboat. I am worried about lightning. She is heading into the big lake even though I’ve called her in.

Nancy Oarneire Graham's somniloquy-based poems and prose have appeared in print and online publications, including BlazeVOX, Café Irreal, Chronogram, Eratio, Invisible City, New Verse News, Pindeldyboz, Prima Materia, Listening in Dreams (by Carol Ione), and Water Writes (edited by Larry Carr). She has performed somniloquies as part of the Deep Listening Institute's Dream Festival in Kingston, New York. Her chapbook, somniloquies, is available from Pudding House Publications.

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