Insomnia - Softcover

Vidaurre, Edward

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1499525796 ISBN 13: 9781499525793

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014

Synopsis

In his second collection of poetry, Edward Vidaurre, an emerging voice in Hispanic and Chicano poetry, offers new poems about death, grief, and loss inspired by bouts of insomnia, and the vivid dream-like imagery that a lack of sleep creates. With an introduction by award-winning author Katherine Hoerth. 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.

About this title

From the Author:

Insomnia, in which the only noise comes from the humming of the refrigerator and grunts from a dreaming dog at his side, when his child sleeps and wife lies on the bed with the light of the moon that makes love to her skin with its menacing glow, is Edward Vidaurre's second collection of poetry, a result of when his eyes fall into heavy pockets forming bags that contain stories of Lorca and Hemingway and anxiety-filled days, when a knock on the door is impending doom and the wind spreads lies throughout the town.
 
Here are instructions on how to function during moments of insomnia: Cut up some fruit and store it in the fridge behind the spoiled milk. Do not throw away the milk. Wake the neighbors by stepping outside and belching out your rendition of "Moon River." Wait for a light to come on and go back inside. Check on your children's breathing, kiss their cheeks and fall in love all over again with them. Go to your spouse's ear and whisper, "Can I massage your feet?" and walk away. Kill roaches and watch an old movie with no sound--but not a silent film. Cry and laugh and hate the clock that stares at you, pointing its critical hands that continue to tick towards another day of exhaustion. Then lay yourself down and die 'til morning.

From the Back Cover:

Edward Vidaurre consistently amazes me with his ability to take the very simple, very common things he notices in his life, like a child's smile or just the right cup of coffee,  and he uses them as a launch pad for poems that take us to the universal realm. 
 
Vidaurre is a self-taught poet with eyes to see,  a heart to feel, and a passion to keep sharing through shadows, confusion,  and changes. His work always leaves me with a sense that I have learned new things about myself, though his words and insights are his alone. 
 
PW Covington, author of I Did Not Go Looking For This
 
~*~
 
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 unsympathetic 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 twitchy, spilt-coffee jerk that stirs us with knowing nods into those moments of clarity and opaqueness, of sweetness and acrimony, of haunting realism that can't help but keep us awake to read just one more poem.
 
Daniel García Ordaz, author of You Know What I'm Sayin'?
 
 
 The poetry of Edward Vidaurre overwhelms one with an insomnia so desperate yet so sweet. A barrio of love constantly surfaces just before he falls asleep and keeps him and us awake with raw truths. Those truths which most of us won't admit to. But the poet is left with no choice. Vidaurre's lyricism reminds one of Omar Salinas, but with a surrealism that bubbles full of reality.
 
Poet Reyes Cárdenas, author of Anti-Bicicleta Haiku (1976), Survivors of the Chicano Titanic (1981), Elegies For John Lennon (1984, 2006), I Was Never A Militant Chicano (1986), and Chicano Poet: 1970-2010 (2013)
 
~*~
 
Combining Lorca-like meditation with the boldness of Bukowski, Vidaurre blends stark imagery and his unique voice to emerge as a powerful new literary force . . .
 
Joseph D. Haske, author of North Dixie Highway
 
~*~
 
In his latest collection of poetry, Edward Vidaurre 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 . . . .
 
David Bowles, award-winning poet of Flower, Song, Dance: Aztec and Mayan Poetry

About this edition

• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1499525796
• ISBN 13: 9781499525793
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 54
• Editor: Garcia Ordaz Daniel
• Illustrator: Vidaurre Edward