This is the first full-length collection of poems by Heather O’Neill, a writer and performer living in Montreal. two eyes are you sleeping is a linked collection of personal and political lyrics, written in a voice that reflects both the rootlessness and violence of the urban landscape and a metaphorical brilliance that transforms the ordinary into the visionary. These are poems of the street, poems of defenselessness, strength, perversity and generosity, poems of drug addicts, alcoholics, con-men and sexual adventurers, poems to shout out in the bathtub with the radio blaring out the song you loved when you were fourteen. Most of all they are about growing up human in the drab beauty of the city.
Author
Heather O'Neill was born in Montreal and attended McGill University. She published her debut novel, Lullabies for Little Criminals, in 2006. The novel won the Canada Reads competition (2007) and was awarded the Hugh Maclennan Award (2007). It was nominated for eight other awards included the Orange Prize, the Governor General's Award and the IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize. It was an international bestseller. Her books The Girl Who Was Saturday Night (2014) and Daydreams of Angels (2015) were both shortlisted for the Giller Prize. Her third novel The Lonely Hearts Hotel will be published in February 2017. Her credits also include a screenplay, a book of poetry, and contributions to The New York Times Magazine, This American Life, The Globe and Mail, Elle Magazine, The Walrus and Rookie Magazine.
