March 11, 2012: Nancy O Graham: I'll Will It

NANCY O GRAHAM: I’LL WILL IT

“I’ll will it, will me a body. Far from the days, the far days, a ray of sunshine and a free bench. No political opinions, have silence, get into silence, into my story in order to get out of it, no. To brew poisons. It’s all I ask. What’s wrong with that?”

—Samuel Beckett, "Texts for Nothing"

From a series based on excerpts from "Texts for Nothing", a collaboration I did with poet Michael Ruby, who "drops" text into his thoughts as he falls asleep, then writes the words thereby "displaced" onto the page.

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.

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. She lives in New Paltz, New York with her family, Henry Lowengard, Raymond and Ada Graham Lowengard, and Pat Lavender Will, a rescued tabby.

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