COURTNEY: Great job in the first 2 body paragraphs explaining how the poem identifies the particular “you” addressed and the imagery (make sure to stick w/ this term) of that person lying there unable to sleep. This may be all the poem is doing and that’s enough to analyze. If you switch from your reaction to the poem and how you relate to it to showing how it portrays a particular setting, mood, tone, speaker, addressee, etc. the analysis highlighted as reader response becomes more on task with the purpose of explication. Make sure to develop a concluding paragraph. In this paragraph, you MAY talk about your reaction or anything that gives your essay a sense of closure or summing up. Minor revisions makes this green. Courtney Stiefvater

Mr. Jennings

4th Hour

Honors English III

Dana Gioia’s “Insomnia”

Dana Gioia's “Insomnia” is a poem that is 18 lines long with three stanzas. Within these stanzas are very common descriptions of what people wouldn’t normally pay attention to. This poem portrays exactly what someone with insomnia might go through, hence the title.

This poem is talking to someone who is either an insomniac or who is becoming one. From the first stanza, it reads, “Now you hear what the house has to say.” and the last line of that stanza reads, “That year by year you've learned how to ignore.” At this point, Gioia states the audience as someone who wouldn’t pay attention to the noises that he described. But in the second stanza, it reads, “But now you must listen to the things you own.” So he switches off to someone who is hearing these things. someonewho has insomnia, sleeping disorder where they are not able to fall asleep or stay asleep. So they’re just sitting/laying there in the quiet of the night or their house and just listening because that is all they can do.<--GIVES US THE SUBJECT/ADDRESSEE AND THE SETTING

Gioia goes somewhat in depth to explain what someone with insomnia might have to ponder on. He REFER TO THE POEM OR SPEAKER VS. THE POET HERE uses personification to describe the property itself. "The murmur of property, of things in disrepair," he shows the reader that the little things that you wouldn't hear that you own, like a murmur.There is a reference on how the families or the people they love might also be affected by the insomnia. Throughout the poem, I imaginedPOEM CREATES IMAGERY OF? someone lying in bed, staring at the ceiling in the dark, "the useless insight, the unbroken dark." Someone who listens to the things in their house because they can't fall/stay asleep. The person does seem to have insomnia.

I would argue that the sense of sound plays a huge role in her poem as well. Gioia gives us great detail as to what this person I hearing rather than seeing. "the venting furnace, the floorboards underfoot,/ the steady accusations of the clock" I can relate to hearing those things at night when the household has silenced down. I don't normally pay attention to that but I might hear it sometimes. But an insomniac might hear it whether they want to or not. So this poem really shows how someone with insomnia might have to deal with.

I truly think that this poem is about what an insomniac goes through on a regular basis.