Winner of 1997 Anhinga Prize for Poetry These poems, in an extraordinarily appealing and mature voice, create a web of underlying connections in our random and violent world. For the most part, these are family stories—birth, aging, death, first love, later love. As one of these poems says, they offer us, "with transparent/Pleasure, the power to see." — Peter Meinke What are our "conversations during sleep"? Michele Wolf insists that they are verbal equivalents of the visual sumptuary of our dreams. This poet shows us how to understand the world around us through the thrill of the senses. By vivifying the poet's dreams—waking and sleeping—this book tastes the world. — Molly Peacock Conversations During Sleep feels like a logbook of gutsy revelations, transporting us to a territory both ethereal and earthy. We care about the lives that nudge us awake in this dark luminosity, a heartfelt journey we don't want to miss. — Yusef Komunyakaa