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.
Heather O'Neill has lived in Virginia and Montreal. She is a spoken word artist, musician and writer, widely published in journals as well as widely known on the Eastern Seaboard for her spoken word performances. She wrote the screenplay for the film St. Jude, directed by John L'Ecuyer, and is the author of the award-winning novel Lullabies for Little Criminals.
"...witty, penetrating, imaginative, visual, and emotional. "
— Canadian Literature, Autumn 2000
"...[Not] just poems.... three-penny opera, early-morning police statement and the slurring song of vagabonds like magpies on methadone."
— Matrix, Spring 1999
"...Harsh familiarity and inventive language...creates a sense of urgency....[A] poetic exploration of poverty and single motherhood."
— Montreal Review of Books, Summer 1999
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