On Jun 2, 2016, at 20:53, Andrew Burke <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Yes, Max, enjoyed them. But I find it difficult to feel the nature of
> dreams in the poems - and I can't create such a tone in my own dream
> writings either!~ Is it a surreal element that permeates dreams?? Too
> dangerous to attempt in mere words? Any techniques any p'etcers practise?
>
> Andrew
>
I have to agree with you, Andrew, about my undreamy tones, as Bill also noted.
My hunch is that a little surrealism goes a long way in poetry, but that may just be me.
I shall now copy in here an older attempt of mine…and I note the ‘actual’ dream is severely framed by my other standard discourse…
Shake off that dream - in the dark
I am mixing with gunrunners,
who are mixing with terrorists, I guess,
but fumbling for words I find also
armament salesmen,
freedom fighters.
What is my dream-self’s complicity?
Am I in it for money?
No conversation takes place;
my panic and recoil are swift and total:
words form with effort: shake
off that dream - day’s dawning.
Max
>
> On 3 June 2016 at 08:16, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> You say sleepy, Bill, but sleep for me is neither creative nor recreative,
>>
>> and dreams are mostly dumb fragments.
>>
>> Yes, that phrase about race gender & class came to me years ago, for
>> another poem,
>>
>> and in general I concede my dream poems are burdened with waking stuff.
>>
>> A friend not on the list tells me my pieces are too discursive and have
>> not enough of image,
>>
>> and he is right.
>>
>> Thanks for saying ‘jaunty’ and noting dialogue.
>>
>> Max
>>
>> On Jun 1, 2016, at 20:08, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>>> What a sleepy fellow you are these days, Max. I wonder whether the airy
>>> dismissal of the 'tiresome threesome' came to the narrator mid-dream or
>> was
>>> an after-construction. Mind you, as Doug says, we all I think still have
>>> dreams of incompletion of tasks begun with commitment. What is most
>>> convincing for me with this one and the metalworking Chris Wallace-Crabbe
>>> in the last is the jaunty tone and frustrations expressed in dialogue.
>>>
>>> Bill
>>>
>>> On Thursday, 2 June 2016, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> A Poet’s Advice
>>>>
>>>> Walter de la Mare
>>>> is in Melbourne - as
>>>> sports commentator.
>>>>
>>>> Many dislike his voice,
>>>> ‘posh’, long sentences,
>>>> but this is cricket
>>>>
>>>> with the Poms on tour.
>>>> Half the team speak that way.
>>>> He glides toward me,
>>>>
>>>> limp handshake. ‘Pleased
>>>> to meet…’ Yes, he will read
>>>> my manuscript, ‘but -
>>>>
>>>> never expect fame
>>>> or money from poems!’
>>>> Do I look so young
>>>>
>>>> and hopelessly hopeful?
>>>> He says he’ll post my packet
>>>> back, but never does.
>>>> The Test victory is theirs.
>>>>
>>>> A Last Late Lecture
>>>>
>>>> The professor who hired me
>>>> when I was thirty appears
>>>> forty-five years on, saying:
>>>> 'Have you kept up?’ Well,
>>>> I'm lecturing right now -
>>>> come see, I say, and listen.
>>>>
>>>> What bravado!
>>>> He sits at the back.
>>>> The half-filled room see
>>>> I’ve come without notes
>>>> or textbook. I bend over
>>>> one in the front row,
>>>>
>>>> and what’s this? - stuff
>>>> I’ve never read, though
>>>> much mentioned for years
>>>> for being power-packed:
>>>> race, gender, class!
>>>> the tiresome threesome
>>>>
>>>> I’ve skirted all this time
>>>> while others ‘work on them’.
>>>> Today I can’t just say:
>>>> here are some poems
>>>> I’ve enjoyed, let’s share.
>>>> My mouth is dry. I wake.
>>>>
>>>> The Thesis Dream
>>>>
>>>> My mid-life opus has dragged me
>>>> slowly into near-retirement
>>>> unfinished, untidy, what the heck.
>>>> Fed up with the long haul,
>>>>
>>>> I parcel it off roughly along
>>>> the guidelines for submission,
>>>> settling back to wait.
>>>> Soon the assessors’ reports
>>>>
>>>> come my way, restrained
>>>> but clearly scandalized.
>>>> No university accepts such
>>>> stuff. Am I downhearted?
>>>>
>>>> Recurring dreams diverge.
>>>> There’s the turn to dismay,
>>>> or the blessed relief,
>>>> resurgence of self-belief.
>>>>
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Andrew
> http://hispirits.blogspot.com/
> Books available through Walleah Press
> http://walleahpress.com.au
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