Insomnia by Dana Gioia

Now you hear what the house has to say.

Pipes clanking, water running in the dark,

the mortgaged walls shifting in discomfort,

and voices mounting in an endless drone

of small complaints like the sounds of a family

that year by year you've learned how to ignore.

But now you must listen to the things you own,

all that you've worked for these past years,

the murmur of property, of things in disrepair,

the moving parts about to come undone,

and twisting in the sheets remember all

the faces you could not bring yourself to love.

How many voices have escaped you until now,

the venting furnace, the floorboards underfoot,

the steady accusations of the clock

numbering the minutes no one will mark.

The terrible clarity this moment brings,

the useless insight, the unbroken dark.

When I read Gioia's Insomnia, I immediately fell in love with what I thought to be the overall message or theme of the poem. Gioia personifies the house in the very first line, "Now you hear what the house has to say." He continues to add to the character of the house, by considering the noises of the house voices, " And voices mounting in an endless drone of small complaints like the sounds of a family..." and "How many voices have escaped you until now." The characteristics of the house, like the shifting walls and its voice, remind its owner of their horrible prioritizing skills. The owner spent to much of their life trying to make money and to own the best and finest things for the house. The voices the owner hears result from things that are broken like a faucet that leaks , "water running in the dark." The voices of the broken items are a metaphor for the broken life of the owner, who has nothing more than material objects. In addition to the metaphor, I felt there was a mood/tone of regret for putting possessions before people, when Gioia writes, "Remember all the faces you could not bring yourself to love."  Lastly the rhyming in the concluding stanza is noteworthy.  The rhyming within the last 3 lines (which is the only rhyming in the poem), ending with "mark" and "dark," emphasize the completion of the poet's thought with what he says in the last paragraph. Gioia ends the poem with the loneliness of the owner who finally in the darkness realizes the uselessness of material possessions and the value of the people you love.  "Numbering the minutes no one will mark," is a powerful line within the poem which renders intimate relationships more valuable than possessions which the owner doesn't realize until now. Overall, what Gioia's insomnia taught me was our material possessions, iPods and televisions should not be valued greatly however the relationships in our lives should.