Wrapped in a blanket, this cozy community poem celebrates rest and relaxation

Transcript

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Sacha, you know, sometimes when I get here to Studio 31, I will say a line of some famous poem to warm up the voice, like in Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree.

SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:

That is a very unusual way to wake up.

INSKEEP: OK.

PFEIFFER: But we today have a poem about falling asleep. Rachel Martin and our poet in residence, Kwame Alexander, are back.

RACHEL MARTIN, BYLINE: We are back, indeed. Good morning, Kwame.

KWAME ALEXANDER, BYLINE: Good morning, my friend, Rachel Martin.

MARTIN: So last time we talked, you left us with a prompt from Margaret Atwood, right?

ALEXANDER: That's right, Rachel. Before she was a novelist, she was a poet - an award-winning poet who wrote about love, nature, alienation, community and sleeping.

MARTIN: Sleeping. So we asked listeners to take a prompt from her poem, "Variation On The Word Sleep," and then write their own poems about all things napping - relaxation, rejuvenation. And I think, as I understand it, we got a record for the most submissions ever?

ALEXANDER: If not, we're close to it with more than 1,200 poems.

MARTIN: Wow.

ALEXANDER: Everybody's tired, I guess, Rachel.

MARTIN: (Laughter) So let's listen to what everybody had to say about sleep. This is "A Blanket Of Words."

ALEXANDER: (Reading) If I could, I would like us to take a break. I would like us to contemplate how much better we all are with rest.

MARTIN: (Reading) I would like to take a restoring nap upon my king-sized bed, to pile my pillows all around my head. A soft, warm, handmade quilt - my cozy nook to curl up with my favorite book into a blanket of words.

ALEXANDER: (Reading) Let's read each other bedtime stories as I drift into unconsciousness, disconnecting from today. I would like to pause just for a few precious moments to calm my mind, to slide from my world of lists and piles of laundry, of last night's dishes in the sink.

MARTIN: (Reading) I would like to rest, but I have a test. I would like to sleep, but my work is too deep. I would like to give in to the pull of my eyelids begging to close, but the email in front of me deserves a reply. So I sigh deeply and shrug, resisting their tug and attempt once again to compose.

ALEXANDER: (Reading) I would like to hide away for a bit of shut-eye in the middle of the day, to the soft, quiet spaces of the old couch before the fire, dogs snoring at my feet, new snow drifting outside my window. I would like to lay my head on a pillow, soft as a feather bed, and let my body sink into repose as my eyelids slowly close.

MARTIN: (Reading) I would like to pull the pinpoint stars down from the sky. I'd weave soft moonbeams through them to climb the stairs my imagination made. I would like to be a bird unburdened. I would like to be me unbound.

ALEXANDER: (Reading) I just want to nap and wonder and wander and dream of letting go, ego dissolving like honey in tea, dream where we can be everything we've ever wanted to be. I would like to be asleep in my bed, unable to access the dread in my head. In my dreams, food, money, and life lack relevance. And I would play with magic monkeys. I would like to live in a world where we dream when we fall asleep and do not face a nightmare when we wake.

MARTIN: (Reading) When I was a little girl, I had dreams of powers that could change the world. In my dreams, I could fly. Now I'm 17, and I no longer dream that I could be a fairy queen. I have dreams where I'm invisible and no one can see me. I would like answers. Why do we do what we do? Why do we learn how we do? We are no longer curious. We are no longer present.

ALEXANDER: (Reading) Exhausted, zombies roaming the streets, toiling with no end in sight. We work to eat. We eat to live. We live to work. Real life beckons with every sheep we try to count. And when my head hits the pillow, the whole world falls away.

MARTIN: (Reading) I would like to rest my shoulders from their stand at attention, my brain from constantly narrating. I would like to, but I can't right now. Too much to do. Not the right time. I have work to do, places to be. But what if I just flee and sleep endlessly?

ALEXANDER: (Reading) I would like to see you try - a moment of nothing, ceaseless wonder, boundless floors, infinite possibilities and a thousand more.

MARTIN: (Reading) I would like to find you in my dream, to hear your voice again whistling wisdom and wit, stories and songs, scents of freedom, molecules of unconditional love.

ALEXANDER: (Reading) I would like to meet you in the space between asleep and awake, where we belong to both worlds and yet owe nothing to either place.

MARTIN: (Reading) I would like to feel again the familiar sensation of my hand in yours as we walk in strange and scary places while my heart beats loudly.

ALEXANDER: (Reading) I would like to listen more closely than the arrogant child that I was, who often dismissed your speech as dated and irrelevant. I would like to travel in a time machine to before the years passed and you died of old age to apologize to you.

MARTIN: (Reading) Most of all, though, I would like to hear your joyful exultation, brief and unmistakable. You're the only one I've ever known to laugh, even in your sleep.

ALEXANDER: (Reading) I would like to awaken in the afternoon sun, soft fingertips lifting an eyelid, your sweet voice. Daddy. Daddy, you in there?

MARTIN: (Reading) If I could, I would like to feel good. Lay on the clouds and not fall through. I would like to surrender. I would like to rest in peace. I would like to rest my heart from the daily stabs of an unkind world. I would like to forget the faces whose judgments crowd my mind.

ALEXANDER: (Reading) I would like to be your pillow, the firmness to support you, the softness to embrace you. I would like to awaken and find it's spring. I would like to be remembered as a fearless dreamer. I would like to shut my eyes and open my heart to nap, wrapped in silence.

MARTIN: (Reading) I would like to lay down in my bed. Wake up better, rise, ready to battle the challenges every day brings. And then I would like to have another cup of coffee, greet the birdsongs, the willow trees, the warmth of the sun.

ALEXANDER: (Reading) I would like to meet the bright new day, embraced in love, refreshed, anew, ready to change the world. But first, I will dream. I will dream of the world I will change. And then I will change it. But for now, I would like to dream.

MARTIN: (Laughter) I'm laughing because I'm just, like, overwhelmed and amazed continuously at our listeners. Like, the prompt was napping, right? And then they bring back these amazingly deep, multifaceted, you know, vignettes of life. It's just awesome.

ALEXANDER: We've got some readers who really are in touch with the matters of the heart, and it shows every poem. I love it.

MARTIN: Kwame Alexander is the author of the forthcoming memoir "Why Fathers Cry At Night." He's also the producer of "The Crossover" TV series, which debuts on Disney+ in April. Kwame, thanks so much.

ALEXANDER: Dream big, Rachel.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DREAMS")

FLEETWOOD MAC: (Singing) It's only me who wants to wrap around your dreams, and have you... Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.