Dream Life

Free Write Prompt

Tell me about a reocurring dream. (OR) Pull out an historic photograph or old family photo and tell me what each person/animal/object in it might be dreaming.  Write for 10 minutes. Ready? Go!

Poem Prompts

1. Write a poem by amplifying the imagery from your reocurring dream. Or write a poem that attempts to solve the mystery of it reoccurrence.
2.  Develop a descriptive but brief scene for what each character or thing is dreaming in your prompt photo. 
3. Write a list poem on the dreamlife of others, objects, or yourself.

Example Poem

Everybody Has Dreams
by Elaine Equi
from her book Click and Clone

Last night, the cook dreamt a giant mouth dribbling blood
or ketchup. He has trouble relating to women.
The woman in the beige pantsuit dreamt of a computer that
transports objects into the future.
The woman by the window was a little girl holding her mother’s
hand.
The guy near the door followed a melody into a forest.
The busboy was driving a sports car fast.
The skinny girl was a military general in a country ruled by a giant
inflatable cat.
The waitress murdered somebody. Even now, she looks guiltily
over her shoulder as she wipes the silverware clean.

This prompt and poem reference is adapted from Joanna Fuhrman's column at teachersandwritersmagazine.com. Joanna Fuhrman is the author of five books of poetry, most recently The Year of Yellow Butterflies (Hanging Loose Press, 2015) and Pageant (Alice James Books, 2009). 

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Dreams are the poems that everyone writes. Available to the literate and illiterate, to the successful and to the outcast, dreams by their nature suggest that everyone has the capacity for poetry.
—Joanna Fuhrman