Night sweats

• personal response

  the fear of creative anxiety can ruin a writer's potential. the power of relationships can save someone
• "work-table, litter, books and standing lamp"

  asyndetic list - irregularity and disordered mind. a messy room connotes creativity, failure, frustration.

  caesura - broken thoughts unable to form a fluent sentence
• "but here I am living in a tidied room"

  shows how he has not yet had the chance to fail, or mess up his room, as he has no ideas
• structure

  unorganised, not consistent rhyme scheme, one stanza of 2 sonnets - represents his thoughts
• "sweet salt embalms me and my head is wet"

  'embalms' is mummifying him, suggesting his creativity is dying. 'sweet salt' is oxymoron, creates sense of confusion like his brain.

  (image of dying also in "wilted"
• "one universe one body"

  parallel syntax shows his pondering of his existence, his one chance
• "a heap of wet clothes, seamy, shivering"

  sibilance - exemplifies the unpleasantry of clothes - reminder of sweats and troubles
• "while the grey skulled horses whinny for the soot of night"

  metaphor for his nightmares wanting to return, anxiety taking over his life, going insane as he can hear whinnies
• "tears the black web from the spiders sack"

  trapped in darkness and nightmares, harsh alliteration shows the torment
• "poor turtle, tortoise... as you bear this world's dead white and cycle on your back"

  refers to himself as an emotion and physical burden to his wife - the turtle - carrying it on her back

  expresses his guilt
• "always inside of me is his will to die"

  creativity exhausts him and leaves him with no inspiration. persistent sense of despair, urge to stop existing. anaphora of always - haunted by his metaphorical child (trauma/unfinished work)
• "dabble in the dapple of day"

  dabble - not really trying hard, superficial.
• "my wife... your lightness alters everything"

  light contrasts with dark of spider. her effect is transformative, he feels relief + calm instead of anxious.