Sleep Gate - by Sylvia Legris (Paperback)

About the Book

Sleep Gate considers flora, fauna, and issues around climate through a surreal portal: the dreamer's mirror.

Book Synopsis

Moving through somnambulant states, Sleep Gate evokes Inger Christensen's description of the necessity for us to 'dream our way inward'. The poems in Sleep Gate push Christensen's 'dream inward' further, into biological dreaming itself. Fully absorbed in the fabric of sleep, enfolded into the 'inventory of dreams', these poems become part of the process of sleep respiration, so that we might consider the world around us from another perspective.

Moving through the changing states of peoples' 'dreamscapes' and what might affect them, like nightmares, insomnia and other sleep disorders, Sleep Gate captures the disjunctive, jump-cutting quality of dreams: within the unspoken context of 'deep-sleep tectonic logic', these poems jump from a time before 'the clouds are inventoried' to the present, from 'Winter's gnashing bruxism' to a 'garden anointed with gluey residue.' A collection that, as on waking, assembles the world through distortion and towards clarity.

Review Quotes

'[T]he Tennysonian delight in language is intoxicating... the specificity of these poems is an antidote to general foreboding.'
― Graeme Richardson, TLS (praise for The Principle of Rapid Peering)

'A dazzling, innovative storehouse of delight.'
― Rebecca Tamás, author of WITCH (praise for Garden State)

'As a poet, Legris is a master of the curving tangent, working her way around a central theme while simply inclining, dropping clippings, allowing the reader to follow, suspended, her careful meanderings, often grounded by a hard-working title or subtle allusion.'
― Paul J. Pastor, Los Angeles Review of Books (praise for The Principle of Rapid Peering)

'Sensuous, brainy and cardiovascular, Garden Physic is a cutting-edge ode to plants, teeming with human knowledge and natural mystery, accompanied by gem-like illustrations by the poet.'
― Kit Fan, Guardian (praise for Garden Physic)

'Sylvia Legris's Garden Physic is the most refreshing book of the year. There's nothing around quite like it.'
― Graeme Richardson, The Sunday Times (praise for Garden Physic)

About the Author

Sylvia Legris's new book of poetry is The Principle of Rapid Peering (Corsair, 2024). Garden Physic (Granta Books, 2022) was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and was named a Best Poetry Book of the Year by both The Times and CBC Radio. Her other collections include The Hideous Hidden, Pneumatic Antiphonal, and Nerve Squall, which was winner of the Griffin Poetry Prize. Originally from Winnipeg, Manitoba, she lives in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.