With provocative insights on every page and new language for the heady, raw experience of being alive, these poems focus their gaze on the existential dilemma of how one finds meaning in a fallen world. They locate themselves in the detritus of modern, consumer life, finding redemption and spiritual sustenance in a landscape beyond words. The poet is more than accomplished; he is simply splendid, and his work offers hope while stripping away the world’s disguises, revealing the stable, comforting, agreeable ground of living in the present moment. This is nourishment for the “smoky crevices of the heart.”
REVIEWS
“Buddhist though he may be, Sigman Byrd doesn’t use the poems in this remarkable collection to demonstrate sublime detachment . . . Whatever glittering objects the world dangles before us, distraction is a kind of stupor, he argues. And so, even as the title of this terrific collection calls on itself and the reader to wake up, Byrd keeps on poking us, poking again and again, with poems full of urgency, liveliness, and good, mordant humor.”
—Katharine Coles, author, The Earth Is Not Flat
“Wake Up, Sleepwalker is a book of paradoxes that work in perfect harmony. Sigman Byrd’s poems have energy and grace, high wit and low humor, heady thoughts and common sundries, as well as trouble and troublemakers, including that maker of all things, the Great Troublemaker Himself. Richly textured and smartly perceived, Wake Up, Sleepwalker is a moving and dazzling collection.”
—John Skoyles, author, Secret Frequencies
“This is a brilliant, wonderful book with provocative insights on every page and new language for the heady, raw experience of being alive. Sigman Byrd is more than accomplished. He is simply splendid, and these poems are nourishment for the ‘smoky crevices of the heart.'”
—Joe David Bellamy, author, Green Freedom
