I had a dream…
I had a dream… there was…
…a forest
…a stranger
…a bright yellow washing machine
In my dream I was suddenly conscious that…
…I was nailed to a table
…I had treacle all over my body
…my head was stuck at a strange angle
and then…
…and then suddenly the trees around me began to burst into towering flames
…and then a cloud of bees were dancing in the air in formation like the Red Arrows
…and then my arms and legs started to seize up like there was ice or rust in my joints
I started to feel uneasy…
…I was screaming for help!
…I was running around terrified that the bees would see me and smell the treacle…
…I knew that I was being controlled by an outsider, like I was a robot, so I tried to get into
the washing machine…
and then I woke up…
…I woke up…
…I woke up…
…and so I woke up…
JACQUELINE MÉZEC
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1 comment:
Have just read this:
Shira Wolosky's The Art of Poetry starts with a useful enough definition, claiming the poem as "a dynamic arena in which elements from outside as well as inside collide and reassemble". That will do: at least, it is a point from which intelligent discussion can begin, and it sets the terms for thinking seriously about what is "outside" and "inside" poetic frames, as well as the complicated question of the place of audiences there. Wolosky builds well on these points, writing that the poem is a "self-conscious site, a field in which the operations of language become visible", thus offering us "a strange and marvellous mirror for seeing how language itself works in shaping our world".
Peter McDonald
Poetry Review Volume 92 No 4
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