Sleeping with the Dictionary

“Any Lit” by Harryette Mullen (2002)

This is another poem from the collection Sleeping with the Dictionary. It uses homophony, or homophones (words that share sounds but have different meanings). The structure is strict and repetitive: Each line begins with anaphora (the same phrase—”You are a”—repeated), and the definition of “you” contains a word that begins with a “u” sound followed by “beyond my” and then a word that begins with an “m” sound. The alliteration that occurs because of the homophones reminds the reader of the alliteration in “Sleeping with the Dictionary,” as well as dictionaries in general.

“We Are Not Responsible” by Harryette Mullen (2002)

This is a third poem from Mullen’s collection Sleeping with the Dictionary. It replaces some of the words from familiar airport announcements, giving it a different feeling than the devices focusing on letters and sounds in Mullen’s other poems discussed in this guide. Rather than drawing from language and dictionaries, this poem draws from pre-recorded warnings to travelers in order to discuss racial profiling.

This poem is placed immediately before “Sleeping with the Dictionary” in the Lunch Poems recording provided below. Listening to the two poems back-to-back provides insight on the range of Mullen’s work, as she very differently reads the two poems.