March 27, 2012: Nancy O Graham: Somniloquy Cycle - Friends, Sometimes

NANCY O GRAHAM: SOMNILOQUY CYCLE – FRIENDS, SOMETIMES

Based on texts from A Friend Is Someone Who Likes You, by Joan Walsh Anglund.

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.

The wind can be a friend, too. It sings soft songs to you at night when you are sleepy and feeling lonely. Sometimes it calls to you to play. It pushes you from behind as you walk and makes the leaves dance for you. It is always with you wherever you go, and that’s how you know it likes you.
—A Friend Is Someone Who Likes You, by Joan Walsh Anglund

This recording was done in bed with my children. It opens with me reading a Halloween story called A Very Scary Ghost Story, by Joanne Barkan. Then I read the full text of A Friend Is Someone Who Likes You by Joan Walsh Anglund, choose an excerpt to use for the somniloquy, and begin the somniloquy.

2. IS OR COULD BE

A friend is someone who likes you. It can be a boy... It can be a girl ... or a cat ... or a dog ... or even a white mouse.
—A Friend Is Someone Who Likes You, by Joan Walsh Anglund

3. ADEQUATE TO THE JERK

Sometimes you don't know who are your friends. Sometimes they are there all the time, but you walk right past them and don't notice that they like you in a special way.
—A Friend Is Someone Who Likes You, by Joan Walsh Anglund

4. A BROOK TALKS TO YOU

A brook can be a friend in a special way.  It talks to you with splashy gurgles.  It cools your toes and lets you sit quietly beside it when you don’t feel like speaking.
—A Friend Is Someone Who Likes You, by Joan Walsh Anglund

5. A TREE FRIEND

A tree can be a different kind of friend. It doesn’t talk to you, but you know it likes you, because it gives you apples ... Or pears ... Or cherries ... Or, sometimes, a place to swing.
—A Friend Is Someone Who Likes You, by Joan Walsh Anglund

6. AND THEN YOU THINK

And then you think you don’t have any friends. Then you must stop hurrying and rushing so fast ... and move very slowly, and look around carefully, to see someone who smiles at you in a special way...
—A Friend Is Someone Who Likes You, by Joan Walsh Anglund

7. WHERE DID YOU FIND YOURS?

Sometimes you have to find your friend. Some people have lots and lots of friends ... and some people have quite a few friends ... but everyone ... Everyone in the whole world has at least one friend. Where did you find yours?
—A Friend Is Someone Who Likes You, by Joan Walsh Anglund

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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