Traveling to the Interior: A Review of The Book of Sleep

By Eleanor Stanford (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2008; $14.95)

Reviewed by Ginny Kaczmarek

When I first saw the title of Eleanor Stanford's book, I laughed. What better title for a book of poems about motherhood than The Book of Sleep? For a new mother, sleep, and the lack thereof, become obsessions. For a poet, obsessions become poems.

Readers of Literary Mama's poetry section might recognize Stanford's name, as well as the book's title. The final poem of the book, "The Book of Sleep (XXXIV)," was published in Literary Mama under a slightly different title, "The Book of Sleep (XXV)," which can now be accessed in the poetry archives. This poem is one of 21 The Book of Sleep poems loosely related in theme and form. Interspersed among these are stand-alone poems that cover subjects as diverse as watching a newborn sleep, traveling to and living in the Cape Verde Islands, and musing about Carolus Linneaus and Charles Darwin. Stanford's voice is in turns quiet, colorful, confused, amused, and even oracular as she describes her experience as a mother, traveler, observer, and spiritual being.