Sleeping with the Dictionary

“Sleeping with the Dictionary” is a prose poem with 10 sentences all in one stanza. In the book of the same title, the text is justified and nearly fills a whole page. While there are no line nor stanza breaks, there is a meaningful change in the sentence length. The fourth sentence is much longer and more complex than the others. As Mullen is fascinated with transience, this sentence visually comes before the middle of the poem (the fifth sentence) and deals with transitioning between being awake and being asleep. Even without traditional forms of poetry, Mullen mirrors form and content.

As a prose poem written in a single stanza, there are no lines to scan. However, Mullen does mention how some poets learn to create metered lines by using the dictionary. The “accented syllables” she mentions in the long fourth line refer to how the dictionary marks stressed and unstressed syllables that combine to form metrical structures. Rather than including metered lines, Mullen takes a meta-look at crafting meter.

Mullen’s poem is filled with alliteration: words that begin with the same letter, group of letters, or sound. Mullen’s smart choice in using