Sleepwalking with Orpheus

Poetry. Haunted by Cocteau's version of the Orpheus myth since 1968, Craig Watson collected a palimpsest of renderings, fragments, and images from the Orphic tradition for the next 40 years. In 2008, he returned to these materials in the wake of a near fatal stroke. The result is SLEEPWALKING WITH ORPHEUS, a constellation of voices that recount the legendary singer's continuous journey through the realms that compose a life. In "Last Man Standing," Watson's post-apocalyptic poem in SECRET HISTORIES, the protagonist asserts: "I'm not dead yet." SLEEPWALKING WITH ORPHEUS takes up that proposition, cannily altering its terms of address to reflect what Watson calls "the interrogative imperative."