Harjo & Spahr: Anti-Sleepwalkers

Paper Summary:

This essay explores sleepwalking as a condition endemic in the modern age as seen in the poetry of Joy Harjo's, "A Map to the Next World" and Juliana Spahr's "Response". The paper examines the practice of intimately witnessing the modern day world, as seen in the act of witnessing in the Cambodian Genocide Project.

From the Paper:

"Sleepwalking, also called noctambulism or somnambulism, defined clinically is the nighttime condition where people who perform motor skills (i.e. walking through rooms, talking to oneself, opening the refrigerator) while asleep. Sleepwalking is, in the poetry of Joy Harjo, a locution nuanced differently; it bears an alternative meaning to the household usage. Clinically, sleepwalking is a phenomenon particular to the wee small hours. What Harjo wants to insinuate the notion she wishes to enliven her reader to is that it is not unprecedented for people of Western culture to sleepwalk at noontime. This point is another way of stating that, irrespective of the hour indicated via one's watch on one's wrist, people walk through the world physically alert but out of touch with their conscience and spirit."

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