When We Wake in the Night - Inspirational Book for Nighttime Reflection & Personal Growth | Perfect for Bedtime Reading, Meditation & Self-Discovery

All of the poems in When We Wake in the Night, a moving collection by Tami Haaland, touch on memories of life, whether they are happy, sad, or nostalgic. As the reader travels the memories of a lifetime, each poem brings forth both the simplicity and the depth of relationships. From watching your son play baseball in "Pitch and Swing" to wishing you were somewhere else in "Yammer," Haaland touches on human emotions that each reader can relate to in his or her own way. The memories stirred up by her poems go beyond the pages of this book and reflect incidents experienced in the reader's own life. There was one section in this collection that really stood out to me personally - "Inquest." The "Inquest" poems dealt with the aftermath of a suicide. The poems point to the emotions of parents after the loss of a child, but beyond the superficial layer these poems speak to anyone who has lost someone to suicide. "A Day and Then Another" brings up the perceived meaning of happiness - "It's what happiness ever amounts to" (49) - while "Said and Done" deals with the guilt from the inability to do anything and the apathy of the surrounding world. Each poem in the "Inquest" section reflects an internal struggle with the guilt and confusion of suicide; a struggle brought forth in the free verse of Haaland's poems. In the other sections, "Your Emergency Waits" hits on the inevitability of an emergency happening and how eventually the intensity of the emergency becomes dulled down; the veracity of "Your Emergency Waits" is what really stuck out to me - "At the time it seemed like terrible damage" (70). Overall, the feelings Tami portrays in her poems are universal but individual for each reader. Everybody should experience the emotion, soul, and empathy in this collection of poems!