Asleep or awake, I suspect that
most poets are dreamers, and our dreams are a rich source of inspiration and
creativity.
Much has been written about
dreams and their interpretation, and dreams have offered an infinite wellspring
of ideas for writers of every stripe throughout written history. This week,
let’s write a poem inspired by an
actual dream (happy dream, emphatic dream, nightmare, surreal dream, waking
dream, precognitive dream)—any dream that you’ve had.
Guidelines:
1. Dig deeply into your dream
recall (your ability to remember dreams) and write down as much of a particular
dream as you can remember (perhaps even a recurrent one).
2. Reflect upon the imagery and
symbolism of the dream you’ve chosen. Think about the details. To explore some dream symbols, click here.
3. What did the dream mean or
suggest to you?
4. Then re-dream your dream in a
poem.
5. Alternatively, recall times
when you’ve watched a beloved pet sleep, and imagine what that pet’s dreams
might have been. Write a poem about a pet’s dream.
Tips:
1. Focus on imagery and on
creating a sense of your dream’s mood. Mood and tone will be important in this
poem.
2. If the dream didn’t make sense
to you, don’t attempt to force it to make sense in your poem.
3. If the imagery of the dream
was surreal, then use surreal imagery in your poem.
4. You may want to write in the
past tense, but think about switching to the present tense to create a sense of immediacy, as if the dream is
happening now.
5. Be aware of “ing” endings and
overuse of prepositional phrases.
6. If you write about a recurrent
dream, be sure to include some elements of repetition, including anaphora (the
deliberate repetition of the first part of a sentence). Repetition can be used
for emphasis, as well as to create tension, and to enhance the sound quality in
a poem.
7. Let your poem use space on the
page in the same way that it uses space in your mind. If the dream components
are scattered, scatter their word counterparts across the page with interesting
line breaks, indents, and stanzaic arrangements.
Examples:
For more examples, visit: www.poets.org/text/poems-about-dreams-sleep.
By way of sharing, here's a dream poem based on a neighbor's suicide
(from my forthcoming book, A Lightness, A Thirst, or Nothing At All).
So Much Life
The girl who killed herself, her dog, and son speaks to me. She tells me that this death is only sleep. I’m not sure what she means by this—what other death? I stand above her grave, not knowing if there even is a grave (a place to put her—perhaps just ash, the newspapers didn’t say); but, no, I see her face. Her lips move before the words: So much life, she says, is dead before the body follows. She looks at me through stippled eyes and, reaching up, she trims the moon with pinking shears. Light, unraveled, falls (a perfect circle) around the dog beside her—the dog’s spirit scratches its jaw. I don’t know how she came to be inside my dream or why she haunts me—I barely knew her. From my front porch, I see the house in which she lived—the storm door open. Snow that is ice, that is glass, covers the lawn; the lawn splinters and cracks.
(Acknowledgment: Exit 13 Magazine, Vol. #20, 2014)
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