in the last week or so, i have experienced four dreams where i am definitely being “taught” a thing or two about poetics
dream #1
i am sitting at a cafe table workshop desk and the question arises
“why don’t you use more ‘dangerous’ language in your poems?”
this setting is in sharp contrast to a similar actual life (i am shying away from calling the waking world the “real world” and my dream world something else) experience where i was asked why i didn’t incorporate more humor into my work. the advice was good advice as the two poets dispensing it – omar & ed – both knew me pretty well in my on & off stage personas (again with this duality thing… uhmm, lets not stray off topic much) and were helping me try to blend these two personae into a more authentic “poetic” voice (yes, i know i am dogging out the quotation marks as well)
meanwhile, back at my sub-conscious, i know the speaker is a poet who revels in the use of dangerous language and how much attention it brings to any and all situations and would love nothing more than to clone another poet who wields dangerous language in the air like a large picket sign at a rally of one
*Speak loudly and wield a polysyllabic stick*
and now the setting has morphed back into a cafe like setting with me sippin quite leisurely on a nice warm cup of coffee and reply in my most calmest tone
“i prefer writing about tenuous/difficult situations that have an inherent sense of danger or mystery in the actual event and try to write these situations with everyday language to help highlight the fact that its not the players who bring the drama but the scenarios themselves” or something like that
then, fully aware that this has all been just a nice case of my “other” coming out in my REM sleep, i fall back into the ether and continue sleeping on through the night
Thank you.