About dream poems...

I should confess something: None of the dream poems I've written recently were based on dreams I actually had. That includes "Weight of an Old Quilt," "Penguin Dreams," "Wreck of the Five Oh One." In all of these poems, the dream is a literary device.

I rarely remember my dreams. I wake up knowing I've dreamed, and maybe an image is left. Everything else is gone.

Remembering dreams is a trainable skill. For a while I kept a dream journal, and I got a lot better at remembering my dreams just by making the effort every day, and writing them down. But after about six months, I gave up. Because my dreams... were boring.

I feel a bit like, as a creative person, I'm supposed to have dreams that are, I don't know, somehow special. Surreal. Symbolic. No such luck! I apparently dream a lot about work, of all things-- and i love my job but it's not what I want to write about most of the time.

But a dream can be a useful device to introduce a mysterious or surreal poem as if it were something I had dreamt. And these poems are more fun than my actual dreams. In so far as I remember them. Maybe I just could never remember the best parts?

Books Available
The Day of My First Driving Lesson
Country Well-Known as an Old Nightmare's Stable
High-Voltage Lines
Knocking from Inside