This poetry writing prompt submitted by Elya Braden:
Dream Writing Prompt:
- Write down one image (one sentence or even just a few words) that immediately comes to mind from each of the following prompts. These images can come from your dreams or real life – no one will know but you.
- the strangest occupation of a former lover
- your favorite pet
- a body part
- an insect or reptile
- an object from your childhood or from a dream
- an outdoor landmark (such as a road, a lake, a hill, etc.)
- a cartoon character or superhero
- Write down a piece of advice you’ve gotten from someone you respect or advice you’d like to give yourself now or in the past.
- Read the following poem, Dream poem because I never write dream poems, by Catherine Owen.
Dream poem because I never write dream poems
Woken just as he was about to go down on me/ that sailor
With the insanely long/earlobes
By a cat clawing at the delicately eroding skin/beneath my eye
Did not make me jovial/one bit
But when I fell back to dreaming and it was/of gypsy women
Catching a stream of bees/pouring from my wounds
Into burlap sacks/or else that inevitable toilet
(Would it be/on a cliff this time or transparent
Or fixed to a proscenium/ or shaped to receive dragonflies
Instead of piss)/ I was none too thrilled at my gallant’s
Failure to return to duty/ and worse
It was now a dream containing advice/Broom Hilda
Appearing to warn me/ I would have to & soon
Get rid of the sphincter in my lungs/if I wanted to sing.
- After you read the poem, go back to your list of images and write a poem in which you describe an imagined dream using as many of those images as you can. Also, include the piece of advice in your poem.
If you write a poem from this prompt, post it as a comment underneath the prompt in the Poetry Super Highway Facebook Group.
