At the beginning of the poetry collection, the reader is presented with a call to action. In the first poem “Explorers”, Jani discusses the importance of releasing the world of logic and rationality for feeling and dreams. He writes, “To critique reason, I want to find the one small door the heart believes in” which showcases how any change, big or small, must start with a feeling. Often, we downsize our feelings to survive. It takes a lot of courage and strength to follow one’s heart. To continue, the reader must make this choice as well.
In Night Fable, Jani utilizes a variety of poetic devises and tools like imagery, personification, and archetypes to immerse the reader in a whimsical, yet somber dream land. The most powerful poetic device I found in his repertoire, however, was his use of motifs. Jani uses several running motifs throughout his collection that offers substantial insight into each individual poem as well as the entirety of the collection.
Jani’s first major motif element is that of the oneironauts, the travelers within dream worlds, who thrive on untethering themselves from the earthly hindrances of the waking world. They are determined in their mission to venture further into their dreams as “the oneironaut is unwavering in his lucidity.” The further oneironauts initiate the reader into the secrets and mysteries dreams offer. No longer do the oneironauts travel alone. Through these dreams, the reader now wanders as well and goes on their own journey through the rest of the collection.
In addition to dream travelers, Jani’s use of birds reminds the reader what dreams could be. A bird taking flight is equivalent to a human dreaming. It is a way to escape the mundane in exchange for mystery. It is “upon waking only the birds are familiar,” with the world. Birds see more than humans, soaring farther and covering ground faster than them. There is only so much one can learn about oneself by staying in one place.
In Jani’s poem “The Alchemist”, the alchemist longs for something more than his shop and his books can grant him. He “is turning himself into a bird laden with flight” because he is ready to take the plunge into the world beyond himself, his livelihood, and everything he knows. The motif of birds throughout Night Fable mirrors the freedom given to us by dreams.
The last key motif relevant in Night Fable is death. Death, which is a natural human experience, is not perceived as a colossal obstacle but a treasured mystery. In “Seasoning the Ship of Death”, death is personified as an ancient ship that embodies the person on the verge of death. As “it drifts with no other cargo but the salt of your experience, the riches, pains, crystallized days all sprinkled on the darkness planks, the deep materials,” death collects our wins, our wounds, and everything else that makes up humans.
Throughout our lives, death will learn each person and pick them up for the last charter course of life. Although death is not ideal or planned, “the oneironaut doesn’t fear death” and continues roaming their dreams despite the lingering of death.
Night Fable tackles a myriad of themes throughout the collection. It touches on the individualization of death, spiritual transformation and rebirth, and the power of nature and dreams. Like any journey, the path is not linear, nor is it the same for others as it is for the individual embarking on it.
Jani explores common oppositions throughout Night Fable like physical versus imaginary, city versus wilderness, known versus unknown, and man versus nature, that makes one wonder which side will come out victorious. With no clear victor between them, these dueling oppositions showcase how they interact and learn to coexist with each other without waging war.
Night Fable challenges future dreamers not to let the physical world barricade them from their dreams. Our bodies stand as physical entities, but “what is solid in us is also just a veil,” because they hold so much more beauty and mystery left unexplored in the fields of our dreams. Jani empowers the reader to take control of their dreams and explore the vast landscape of our subconscious.
