title: Acquainted with the Night: Insomnia Poems
author:  Lisa Russ Spaar 
description: This dark-hued but often beautiful anthology offers poems from many cultures. (Herbert Kupferberg <i>Boston Globe</i>)<br /><br />One of the greatest pleasures for me as a poetry lover is to discover a remarkable new anthology full of unfamiliar gems and forgotten classics. Lisa Russ Spaar's <i>Acquainted with the Night</i> is exactly this sort of bookvital, engrossing, and enlarging. Spaar's treatment of her single subject is astonishingly diverse, ranging from ancient Greek to modern Japanese. She mixes compelling poems from Russia, Italy, India, China, Sweden, France, and elsewhere with a striking selection from the English-speaking world. As she explores her dark subject, insomnia becomes a focal point for the human condition. (Dana Gioia)
zlib_text:                                    Insomnia
                                        by
                                     H. Seitz
                                                 
                                                              5.2.00
  
               FADE IN:
               On credit sequence...
               AN ARM
               stretched out.  Long, alabaster white.  Beautiful.  A WASH
               CLOTH enters frame.  Starts washing the arm with long, tender
               strokes. 
               A TUMBLE OF HAIR
   
               thick and auburn.  Being gently washed.  
               FINGERNAILS
               being clipped with a shiny nail clipper.  Short.  Uniform.
               Tidy.
               EYEBROWS
               brown with a touch of gold.  A BRUSH comes into view.
               Brushes against the eyebrow hair, then back again.  Against.
               Then back again.
               PANTY-HOSE
               pulled gingerly off a long leg.  Folded neatly.  The wash
               clot