As I was heading toward bed last night, I thought of Galway Kinnell’s “The Book of Nightmares.” It has been years since I last read it. I figured it was the universe telling me I needed to read it again, So I pulled it off the shelf.
I first ran across “The Book of Nightmares” in the University Coop basement, where they would put out the required texts for the numerous classes being offered that semester at UT. I often would troll through the offerings, buying books for classes I was not taking. One semester, Kurt Heinzelman, a prof at UT, was teaching a graduate class on the Modern Long Poem. In addition to Eliot’s Four Quartets, Ted Hughes,” Crow, and various others, was Kinnell’s Book of Nightmares. I bought them all. Kinnell’s book fell into heavy rotation in my reading play lists. A few years later, I found a cassette tape of Kinnell reading The Book of Nightmares, which I listened to constantly in my old Honda as I drove around Austin.
After years of reading and re-reading “Nightmares,” as well as his other books, Kinnell came to Texas State to do a reading in 1989. Lisa, Donna and I drove down to see him. After the reading there was a reception where the attendees could talk with Kinnell. I was too introverted to attempt a meeting, even though I had brought my old copy of Book of Nightmares for him to sign, if by some miracle I was able to summon enough gall to speak to the poet. Donna and Lisa went off to find the restroom and left me sitting on a bench awaiting their return. While I waited a man came over and sat down on the bench next to me. It was Galway Kinnell. I figured I had to talk to him, since there he was. We made forgettable small talk about Vermont, and he graciously signed my copy of Nightmares.
Last night after I pulled it off the shelf again, after years of not thinking about it, I read it again from start to finish. It is still an amazing poetic achievement. Reading it, I immediately fell into the slow rhythms, and stunning imagery. Themes of universal birth and death, creation and time mixed in with the personal reflections on the birth of his own children are just a part of the overall power of the book. I was lucky to have run across it that day in the Coop basement, it has been a true companion in my literate life.
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