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The poems in Sleep on Needles disperse human consciousness beyond us vs. them tribalism to create fleeting bonds with any number of species: a garlic flower, some gibbons, a Greenland shark, a nautilus, a blue whale, a rat. Trying to leave room for the impossible, these poems crave experience outside of language. They eschew convenient certainties including homo sapiens' historical claim of dominion over plants and animals. "Memory decants identity," one poem claims, and, thus, within these poems, identity and persona are on the move and always about to change.
About the author
Richard Lyons is the author of Heart House (Emrys Press 2019), Un Poco Loco (Iris Books, 2016), Fleur Carnivore, winner of 2005 Washington Prize (Word Works, 2006), Hours of the Cardinal (University of South Carolina Press, 2000) and These Modern Nights (University of Missouri, 1988). He has been a recipient of a Nation "Discovery" Award and is Emeritus Professor of English and Creative Writing at Mississippi State University. He lives outside of Memphis with his wife.
