when I was me

     in the dream
     I begged Joseph
     to help me
     interpret

     but he said
     I knew

    When I say the dream/poem came out directly, I mean
exactly  that.  There  was  no   transition   point   between
dream and poem. In other words, when I woke up, I did  a
number of things, morning activities, and then I  realized
there  was   a  dream   I   had   to   get  down.   Now   what
happened was that  it came out that way, and  I  think that,
in order for  it to do so, something  in me also wanted to
write. So  unconsciously,  the  mental  mechanisms were
set up to write poetry at the same time that they were set
up to remember a dream and set it down in all its detail.
     I  am a practicing poet and also work with high school
students  on  creative  writing.  I've learned  that  the  two
mechanisms  (to   write  poetry   and   to  remember  and
record   a   dream)   do   not   usually   operate   together,
especially  since  the  writing  mechanism is  filled  with
all sorts of  necessities  which  govern  a  pleasing  form,
structure,  rhythm,  sound    and   narrative.  The  better  a
writer becomes,  the  better she  is able to  perfect  these
techniques,  and  then  the  techniques  begin  to  become
part    of    a    subconscious   apparatus   of  writing.  The
mechanism  of  remembering   a  dream,  however,  is  to
receive  and  recover.  It  is  being mentally  receptive  as
well,  and  is  aimed  toward remembering  certain things:
that which was dreamed.  So  it's  a  specific  process and
yet  a  loose   one,  too.  These  two  functions  are  quite
different  and  most often  there  is  a  translation needed
between the two,  especially as  dream sequences usually
do not make sense logically, and if one wants a reader to
follow  the story  (in a prose piece or poem),  it needs to
have  the  logic   supplied.   That's   when   a   forging   of
common  aims and needs takes place  (I  am reminded of
the   buffer   zone   between   warring   countries,    oddly
enough).  One aim of my own  is to be as receptive in my
writing as I am in my dreaming, and vice versa.

Carol H. Leckner, Montreal, Quebec

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