Three Prompts with a Series of Texts Between Me and J

Emerging from the Silver Screens of Dreams

After I wake up, I realize I had a dream that I saw a movie at the theater, but I slept through most of it. Of course, being awake I realize it was just a dream because I don't know what the movie was! I don't remember anything about the movie.

I've also had dreams where I was reading an amazing poem written by someone else. I woke up to realize that that actually was my poem that I created as if someone else wrote it but had no memory of it.

J: Oh, those dreams sound like amazing entry points into writing!

Dennis: I like your idea, even maybe trying the trance poetics again, to go into reading a poem but you actually write down what you're reading.

J: Or like your practice of writing down "poems you could write today," it could just be to write a list of poems that you would dream about reading.

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I'm a firm believer in the mystery of poems. Close readings, taking the time to really look at a poem, can reveal so many of the other hidden art and craft things that are easily missed when reading an amazing poem. But then there are those moments where you just have to ask, how did this poem happen? And how does it happen to me? And there is no way to logically explain what happened.

And I like using the first and second person together. Isn't that what the world religions teach us? That there isn't much a difference between you and me?

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In beginning poetry writing, these words came to me:

Poems are psychological reckonings.

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Another way of shaping poems

I recently found this wonderful website which counts the occurrences of words in a text. I searched for this website, thinking how words creep up in my “brainstorming” / “letting go” writing.

For a recent writing:

Look at occurrences of words

https://wordcounter.net/

These were my most-used words: Notion, wish, heart, without, wonder, flight, forever, hope, hold, like

I look at each of these words and decide which to remove

I want to remove “notion” as it feels blah

Remove “heart” because it is too poetically overused, but look at heart and heartbreak

For my poem, I pull these phrases:

my heart into knowing

heart of and complaint is want should be a part of handiwork

with heart I came out of this

it took my heart's notice

of heartbreak and a loving turn

of heartbreak I left this world

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I then consolidated the phrases with “heart” but kept “heartbreak”

I came out of this

into knowing complaint is want

should be a part of handiwork

of heartbreak I left this world

with a loving turn

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With this method, I continue pulling out the most-used words, reshaping, then adding to the lines I will eventually make a poem with.

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Thank you for reading! I appreciate your time and hope this helps as we all can rely on poetry for self-care and connecting.

Dennis