In [Sleep Watch] Richard Tillinghast pulls the reader rapidly into the strange world of his poems. His speech is quiet, modern, witty, while he talks about the oddness of the ordinary experiences of life. Many of his poems are reflections on simple everyday events or memories: raking leaves under the watchful eyes of his father, riding a ferry boat at night, recovering from an illness or love affair, waking up in the middle of the night. Until is a warm and charming portrait of an aging couple…. (p. 204)

Most of Tillinghast's poems are not so simple as Until, nor so conventional in form. The title of this collection, Sleep Watch, is very accurate, for a large number of his poems are about sleeping and waking, about the operation of the mind. The experiences he presents have the quality of a collage or surrealistic film: waking states of mind...