Insomnia Poems

Born in Guyana, Grace Nichols has lived in Britain since 1977. Her first collection, I is a Long Memoried Woman (1983) won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize. Her later poetry collections – published by Virago – include The Fat Black Woman’s Poems (1984), Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Woman (1989), Sunris (1996), winner of the Guyana Prize, and Startling the Flying Fish (2006), poems which tell the story of the Caribbean, along with several poetry books for younger readers, including Come on into My Tropical Garden (1988), Give Yourself a Hug (1994), Everybody Got a Gift (2005) and Cosmic Disco (2013). She has published four books with Bloodaxe, Picasso, I Want My Face Back (2009), I Have Crossed an Ocean: Selected Poems (2010), The Insomnia Poems (2017), and Passport to Here and There (2020). She lives in Sussex with the poet John Agard and their family.

Lunar and likeable, Grace Nichols’s Insomnia Poems chart the hinterland between sleep and wakefulness, memory and desire, dreams and the realities of life.

• 9 Once Again 10 One Night Comes Like a Blessing 11 The Projectionist 12 A Tale 13 Moon-mothers 14 An Insomniac's Attempt at Her Own Self-hypnosis 15 Another Day 16 At the Edge of the Table 17 In Search of Sleep 18 Nightmare 19 Wherever They Lie 20 To the Virgin of Guadalupe 21 Night-coos 22 Learning 23 Sleeping Legend 1: Sleeping Beauty 26 Night 27 Watershed 28 Tonight My Childhood 29 The Shadow-stealers 30 Diablesse 32 Our Pied Piper 33 Moon-calf 34 Rain Rain 36 Beyond the Dreaming Dark 37 Streams of Mercy 38 Snowdrops at the Hurst 39 Sleeping Legend 2: Rip Van Winkle 40 Insemination of Pig Between Sleep and Wake 41 The Accomplice 42 Parallel World 43 The Myoclonic Jerk 44 Close to the Edge 45 Dream Libation 46 Within the Gospels 47 Sleeping Legend 3: Gilgamesh 50 My Best Cure (for John) 51 The Long Haul 52 In the Meditating Dark 53 Starry Night 54 Adam to Eve 55 Naming 56 Baby Sleep 57 Dawn Speaks of Dawn 58 Twin Sisters 59 Reflecting on Pebble 60 Waking-up London 61 Guitar 62 The One You Don't See Coming