Poetry, Children, & Natalie Merchant

A fascinating anthology of children’s poetry set to music by a leading artist & performer (from The Horn Book)

“Leave Your Sleep,” by Natalie Merchant (Nonesuch Records. 2 CDs with accompanying booklet of poems)

While marketed as a two-disc music compilation with an accompanying booklet, Natalie Merchant’s Leave Your Sleep might be better understood as a fascinating anthology of children’s poetry accompanied by biographical notes and two CDs on which each of the twenty-six poems is set to music. But it is even more than that. Leave Your Sleep epitomizes a certain contemporary sensibility and style of parenting. It is as much a work about childhood as it is a work for children.

A gifted vocalist, Natalie Merchant is a tastemaker whose songs have provided a soundtrack for our times. In 1987 with the band 10,000 Maniacs and their terrific album In My Tribe, she introduced what might be termed Yankee Grunge; everything about it seemed to say “Northampton, Mass” and English Major. Then, in Tigerlily (1995) and Ophelia (1998), Merchant embarked on her solo career and, as these titles suggest, turned to feminism; the album photos of Merchant even seem to present reincarnations of Emily Dickinson. Her next phase came in 2001 with Motherland and in 2003 with The House Carpenter’s Daughter. Now, after a seven-year hiatus and with a seven-year-old daughter, Merchant has released this work of…