what it means
Two lovers are in bed together. The speaker has anxiety and insomnia. She’s going to cope with them by reframing. Because she trembles with anxiety, she’ll call it “desire” instead. She says her mind at night is like a beast wandering the fields. She tries to reframe insomnia as something beautiful like spring. Near the end of the poem, she stops trying to cope on her own and asks her lover to help her, to tell her a story that will help her go to sleep.
You can look at something awful and see it as beautiful.
It's ok to admit you need help and to accept it.
why I like the poem
Did you find this poem completely incomprehensible on the first reading? I did. I often talk to friends (looking at you Jim) about the difference between hard poetry that is hard because it’s poorly written gobbledygook and hard because it asks the reader to think hard, to read slowly and carefully, to believe the poem will reveal itself to you with enough effort. That’s frankly why I like this poem. I found it hard, but the more I worked at it, the more I figured out until it blossomed in front of me. I’ve started asking my friends to guide me through fields of art they know well (still looking at you Jim) and trust me when I say they can understand a good hard poem with some support from their trusty poetry guide.
craft
Did I mention that Dia and are writing a book (very early stages) where we share craft moves we learned from reading other poets? Here’s a sample page based on this poem.
Craft move: Imply the premise.
Section of the book it goes in: Leaps
Example: “From the Desire Field” by Nathalie Diaz
I don’t call it sleep anymore.
I’ll risk losing something new instead—
Analysis:
Here the logical argument she is making is: calling something by its name means you risk losing it. She starts by saying what she won’t do given that premise: I don’t call it sleep anymore. And then what she will do because of that premise: I’ll risk losing something new instead—
She never says the premise. The reader has to infer it. This is also an incredible way to sneak in a wisdom statement; you assume its truth.
Debby’s Tries
Premise: counting 5 things you see can stop you from killing yourself.
I take a breath and say out loud:
yellow leaf in the driveway
songbird
bright red Japanese maple by the front stairs
the brass knob set too high
the yellow door
I repeat for as long as it takes—
scorching seconds, frozen hours.
I want to live.
DB
Premise: If you knock on the stranger’s door, you risk becoming a new person.
We have new neighbors.
I won’t risk changing my life.
DB