The Sleep of Reason

The Sleep of Reasonplunges us into a macabre world where good impulses bring on evil consequencesa world not unlike our own. In David Gewanter's alternately delightful and startling poems, allegory comes alive and stalks a bookstore's musty aisles, comedians eviscerate their families for a laugh, lovers love each other for withholding affection, and theaters collapse on audiences hungry for spectacle. Amidst such surreal subjects, Gewanter's delicate musicality and keen sense of humor sparkle; his inquisition regarding a fallen world becomes a dark comedy of errors haunted by the most unexpected charactersfrom JFK Jr. to Tacitus, Redd Foxx to General Motors, Mariah Carey to 100 rabbits with herpes. An offbeat satire for an off-kilter age,The Sleep of Reasonoffers an incisive guide to moral behavior in an immoral world.

David Gewanter, an associate professor of English at Georgetown University, is the author of In the Belly, which won the John C. Zacharis First Book award from Ploughshares magazine, and co-editor of The Collected Poems of Robert Lowell. He has received a Witter Bynner Fellowship and a Whiting Writers' Award.