Important Update to A DREAMKU PRIMER: Writing Haiku-Like Poems About Your Night Dreams -- Part I, II, & III, by Patricia Kelly

[photo by Roswila (a/k/a Patricia Kelly]

It’s been almost five full years since I wrote my three part Dreamku Primer. There have been some changes in that time, gradually but surely, in how I use haiku-like dreamku, tanka, and monoku as templates for writing about my night dreams. Enough changes that I feel a need to address them. (If you have not read the primer, here's a link to the first part, which has a link at the end to the second, and the second has a link to the third at the end.)

1) Most of the time now I write about the entire dream, not just one important aspect of it. This is probably the single biggest change. I do this using various combinations of dreamku, tanka, and/or monoku as stanzas to one complete dream poem. This has encouraged no longer worrying about making each dreamku, tanka, or monoku in a series capable of standing alone (something for which I used to aim). My dream poems have also been getting longer in recent months. This extra length tends to require a little more punctuation for clarity's sake and often affords room for simile/metaphor (something I rarely used in earlier years) without over-loading the poem.

2) This next is fairly recent: more and more I allow my conscious reaction to the dream to come in at the very end of a dreamku series. Prior to this I felt conscious response at the end of the dream poem did a disservice to the dream itself. Now I'm finding it not only often provides a more interesting ending which helps the dreamku-as-poem, but that it actually respects the dream-as-source. I do not understand dreaming as something separate from consciousness, but rather as a different point along a spectrum, and that spectrum is continuous with waking awareness. Just as an evening of dreams can often be seen to progress or answer each other or even sometimes argue along the way, so too can waking consciousness offer answers to or arguments with or comments on the night's dreams. I’ve always understood metaphor/simile as a way of connecting dissimilar things, even revealing a similarity or clarifying juxtaposition that is already there. So too, hopefully, does the connection of a dreamku series to waking consciousness point to a similarity or sometimes to a revealing contrast.

3) I have started occasionally using the two-line version of haiku. It’s like “Goldilocks and the Three Bears.” Occasionally the five line tanka and three line dreamku are too big, the one line monoku too small, and the two-liner “just right.”

4) And in the vein of which length form to use at any given point, someone asked me a while back how I choose which form to use. It’s an intuitive process. I follow what might be called a “breath.” How long a particular image or action will take before a new “breath” (stanza) is needed. However, I don’t decide this ahead of time; it comes as I’m drafting. Literally, I write or type that first line, then, well, metaphorically speaking, I follow my nose.

If you have any comments or questions, or dreamku you've written to share, I'd love to hear from you.

Delicious dreaming!

* * * * * * * *

PLEASE NOTE that I never have nor do I now lay claim to having been the first to suggest writing about our dreams in the haiku form. In fact, the haijin (Haiku Masters of centuries ago) sometimes wrote haiku on dreams. But even more importantly, what I have been developing for several years now on this blog is not even truly haiku or tanka or monoku. The ways in which I have been using and experimenting with these forms makes the results more akin to kissing cousins of these small Eastern poetry forms. Therefore, I mostly use the term "dreamku" to distinguish what I do from those traditional forms. Click here for a more in-depth INTRODUCTION than follows below, including links to my THREE PART PRIMER on the basic (most haiku-like) dreamku form.

Also, the photo accompanying a daily dream poem or non-dream based poem is not necessarily meant to illustrate it, but to reflect some small, even slant aspect of the verse -- similar to Japanese haiga (illustrated haiku). I've also recently realized that although the dreamku (i.e. dream based poems) posted here tend not to have metaphor or simile, the accompanying photos almost always act as such.

To write a metaphor or simile into a dream scenario is something I rarely do. It can be confusing: did it really look like a hand, say, in the dream, or am I just being poetic to make my conscious point? As these dreamku act as a dream journal, my over-riding tendency is to try to stay close to the actual dream scenario itself. Admittedly making for a tendency to less "poetic" dreamku. Then why pay attention to any haiku, tanka, or monoku parameters at all when writing about my dreams? Because I find in even attempting to adhere to them I'm making choices that relieve my dream recall of a great deal of chatter so that I can get down to some important dream aspects. Here's a link to THE AREN'TS OF DREAMKU & ACCOMPANYING PHOTOS in which I go into some of the basic parameters for dreamku and the photos chosen to go with them (and with any non-dream based poems I post here, as well).

The archives in the sidebar hold years of the daily dreamku, tanka, monoku and photo posts I've made, grouped in one post by month. As I no longer post dreamku (or non-dream based poems) strictly daily, each post will appear below and then in the archives by the day on which it was posted.

There are many other sorts of posts here, not all dream-based. I indicate which are about or influenced by dreams. Some non-dream focused posts are book reviews, "regular" poems (some by other writers than myself), scifaiku, writing exercises, Tarot haiku, photos, haiga, and so on. However, most of those are in much older posts. There's a listing by month going back to early 2006 in the sidebar.

* * * *

‘til next time, keep dreaming,

[aka: Patricia Kelly]
**** If you wish to copy or use any of my writing or poems, please email me for permission (under “View my complete profile”) **** My other blogs: ROSWILA’S TAROT GALLERY & JOURNAL; ROSWILA’S TAIGA TAROT; and OPENING TO THE LIGHT ****

HALF EMPTY OR HALF FULL (photo) & NO WAY (dreamku) by Roswila

NO WAY

though not a member
they expect me to handle child-care
political cult

what does this mean --
somehow I've led them to think
I'd love doing this or
that the group's work carries more
weight than my own feelings

neither way of seeing
leaves me any recourse, any
easy way to say "no"


[a dreamku, tanka, and dreamku on a dream of 3-27-12. OK, this one seems to continue the theme of how I see things referenced in my previous post. In thinking about that either/or choice within the dream, I recall (I believe it was) C.G. Jung's assertion that "It's not either or, but both and more." And the kicker here seems to be that word "easy" at the end. I did not think or hear that word in the dream, but felt it -- a yearning for saying "no" to be easy. (I.e., "saying no" as in taking healthy care of one's self.) "Easy" puts me in mind of an old poem of mine from about 2007:

Not the winter, but what haunts it.
Not the sterile seed, but the expectation.
Not the two thousand rocks in a cold garden,
but the wish for easy.

Photo "Half Empty or Half Full" by Roswila]

PLEASE NOTE that I never have nor do I now lay claim to having been the first to suggest writing about our dreams in the haiku form. In fact, the haijin (Haiku Masters of centuries ago) sometimes wrote haiku on dreams. But even more importantly, what I have been developing for several years now on this blog is not even truly haiku or tanka or monoku. The ways in which I have been using and experimenting with these forms makes the results more akin to kissing cousins of these small Eastern poetry forms. Therefore, I mostly use the term "dreamku" to distinguish what I do from those traditional forms. Click here for a more in-depth INTRODUCTION than follows below, including links to my THREE PART PRIMER on the basic (most haiku-like) dreamku form.

Also, the photo accompanying a daily dream poem or non-dream based poem is not necessarily meant to illustrate it, but to reflect some small, even slant aspect of the verse -- similar to Japanese haiga (illustrated haiku). I've also recently realized that although the dreamku (i.e. dream based poems) posted here tend not to have metaphor or simile, the accompanying photos almost always act as such.

To write a metaphor or simile into a dream scenario is something I rarely do. It can be confusing: did it really look like a hand, say, in the dream, or am I just being poetic to make my conscious point? As these dreamku act as a dream journal, my over-riding tendency is to try to stay close to the actual dream scenario itself. Admittedly making for a tendency to less "poetic" dreamku. Then why pay attention to any haiku, tanka, or monoku parameters at all when writing about my dreams? Because I find in even attempting to adhere to them I'm making choices that relieve my dream recall of a great deal of chatter so that I can get down to some important dream aspects. Here's a link to THE AREN'TS OF DREAMKU & ACCOMPANYING PHOTOS in which I go into some of the basic parameters for dreamku and the photos chosen to go with them (and with any non-dream based poems I post here, as well).

The archives in the sidebar hold years of the daily dreamku, tanka, monoku and photo posts I've made, grouped in one post by month. As I no longer post dreamku (or non-dream based poems) strictly daily, each post will appear below and then in the archives by the day on which it was posted.

There are many other sorts of posts here, not all dream-based. I indicate which are about or influenced by dreams. Some non-dream focused posts are book reviews, "regular" poems (some by other writers than myself), scifaiku, writing exercises, Tarot haiku, photos, haiga, and so on. However, most of those are in much older posts. There's a listing by month going back to early 2006 in the sidebar.

* * * *

‘til next time, keep dreaming,

[aka: Patricia Kelly]
**** If you wish to copy or use any of my writing or poems, please email me for permission (under “View my complete profile”) **** My other blogs: ROSWILA’S TAROT GALLERY & JOURNAL; ROSWILA’S TAIGA TAROT; and OPENING TO THE LIGHT ****

CHAOS MAGICK (photo) and OF SWIPES & BITS (dreamku series) by Roswila

OF SWIPES & BITS

Dream One

we’ve been tip-toeing
around, watching for that awful
man – what’s even worse
we don’t know who he is
or what he looks like

I wind up alone
in an empty room with white walls
the door slams open
it’s him! an ancient rail thin man
with claw-like hands and stealthy step

he’s intent on murder
the sickle-swipe of his arm
my terrified shout


Dream Two

where are her new glasses?
she thought they were in her purse
and they’re not in the
boxes of her possessions
forwarded by women friends

she starts unpacking
her old glasses they’d sent, but none
work for reading and
most are ill fitting, sitting
wildly askew on her nose

one bright yellow pair
she recognizes from years ago,
almost meets her needs
but ultimately yields a
distant and fuzzy view

the lenses of a
purple pair so huge they look
like butterfly wings bridging
her eyes, once her favorite pair,
now offer badly blurred vision

she cannot believe
this predicament –
all these ways of seeing
yet none are fitting now or offer
the least bit of longed for clarity


[a dreamku series on two dreams of 3-25-12. Dream One was the first of the evening, and Dream 2 the last. I’m aware I had dreams in between as well. And as a night’s series of dreams often do, clearly they made some progress along the way. The first dream above fits my personal definition of a nightmare: I struggled to wake myself up to get out of it. In this case, I shouted once very loudly in fear. Given the second dream I’d say that my psyche is suggesting I re-evaluate how I see things. That maybe some of my waking life beliefs are based on inaccurate – or at least extremely out of focus and out-dated – perceptions, making them the true nightmares. Photo “Chaos Magick” (an important tenet of which is said to be “belief is a tool,” which makes it peculiarly apt for accompanying this post) by Roswila]

PLEASE NOTE that I never have nor do I now lay claim to having been the first to suggest writing about our dreams in the haiku form. In fact, the haijin (Haiku Masters of centuries ago) sometimes wrote haiku on dreams. But even more importantly, what I have been developing for several years now on this blog is not even truly haiku or tanka or monoku. The ways in which I have been using and experimenting with these forms makes the results more akin to kissing cousins of these small Eastern poetry forms. Therefore, I mostly use the term "dreamku" to distinguish what I do from those traditional forms. Click here for a more in-depth INTRODUCTION than follows below, including links to my THREE PART PRIMER on the basic (most haiku-like) dreamku form.

Also, the photo accompanying a daily dream poem or non-dream based poem is not necessarily meant to illustrate it, but to reflect some small, even slant aspect of the verse -- similar to Japanese haiga (illustrated haiku). I've also recently realized that although the dreamku (i.e. dream based poems) posted here tend not to have metaphor or simile, the accompanying photos almost always act as such.

To write a metaphor or simile into a dream scenario is something I rarely do. It can be confusing: did it really look like a hand, say, in the dream, or am I just being poetic to make my conscious point? As these dreamku act as a dream journal, my over-riding tendency is to try to stay close to the actual dream scenario itself. Admittedly making for a tendency to less "poetic" dreamku. Then why pay attention to any haiku, tanka, or monoku parameters at all when writing about my dreams? Because I find in even attempting to adhere to them I'm making choices that relieve my dream recall of a great deal of chatter so that I can get down to some important dream aspects. Here's a link to THE AREN'TS OF DREAMKU & ACCOMPANYING PHOTOS in which I go into some of the basic parameters for dreamku and the photos chosen to go with them (and with any non-dream based poems I post here, as well).

The archives in the sidebar hold years of the daily dreamku, tanka, monoku and photo posts I've made, grouped in one post by month. As I no longer post dreamku (or non-dream based poems) strictly daily, each post will appear below and then in the archives by the day on which it was posted.

There are many other sorts of posts here, not all dream-based. I indicate which are about or influenced by dreams. Some non-dream focused posts are book reviews, "regular" poems (some by other writers than myself), scifaiku, writing exercises, Tarot haiku, photos, haiga, and so on. However, most of those are in much older posts. There's a listing by month going back to early 2006 in the sidebar.

* * * *

‘til next time, keep dreaming,

[aka: Patricia Kelly]
**** If you wish to copy or use any of my writing or poems, please email me for permission (under “View my complete profile”) **** My other blogs: ROSWILA’S TAROT GALLERY & JOURNAL; ROSWILA’S TAIGA TAROT; and OPENING TO THE LIGHT ****

CENTRICAL (photo) & FORENSIC NEXUS (dreamku series) by Roswila

FORENSIC NEXUS

Prologue

each bite into the flesh
of her arms hands face by his teeth
leaves a sickle-shaped wound
her blood so copious and dark
that they can barely be seen

her rescuers aghast
at her ripped flesh still refuse to
see this as an attack
especially once she tells them
who the perpetrator is


On The Road

they stumble across
the truck in which her wounded body
and the biter’s were buried
they don’t even examine
where this old evidence points

instead they start shoving
the retro-fitted ice cream truck
with bodies on board
off the highway overpass –
pushing it towards oblivion

as they do they warn
the still breathing boy with the teeth
to jump out of it
if he wants to avoid
a plummet to the tarmac


The Epilogue

I know this place too well
all the roads around my childhood
home still converge here

the crescent moon scars
on my arms hands face pull tight
I sigh and turn away


[dreamku series on a dream of 3-23-12. The setting of this dream was the actual place where various streets, a boulevard, a service road with over-passes, and two main highways all converged/crossed around the housing complex I lived in between 8 and 12 years old. This dream is another example of what in my dream world I’ve begun calling the hyperbole of a nightmare. That is, the images are overly dramatic, but the emotions beneath them are not. In fact, the drama of my nightmares seem to be there precisely to call my attention to the underlying emotions. As if that is the only way my psyche can get me to pay attention. And I had not been paying attention in my waking life when I had this dream. Understandably, as I thought what was going on was good for me. On a rather surface level it was. But not deeper where I really live. Note on nightmares: As I've commented before many of the dreams I post here some folk call nightmares, but I do not. I only call a nightmare a dream from which I find myself struggling to wake up because it's so intolerable. And it's a rare dream in which that happens. In the above dream I struggled to reject the "Prologue" section, after that it was a "regular" dream. Photo “Centrical” by Roswila]

PLEASE NOTE that I never have nor do I now lay claim to having been the first to suggest writing about our dreams in the haiku form. In fact, the haijin (Haiku Masters of centuries ago) sometimes wrote haiku on dreams. But even more importantly, what I have been developing for several years now on this blog is not even truly haiku or tanka or monoku. The ways in which I have been using and experimenting with these forms makes the results more akin to kissing cousins of these small Eastern poetry forms. Therefore, I mostly use the term "dreamku" to distinguish what I do from those traditional forms. Click here for a more in-depth INTRODUCTION than follows below, including links to my THREE PART PRIMER on the basic (most haiku-like) dreamku form.

Also, the photo accompanying a daily dream poem or non-dream based poem is not necessarily meant to illustrate it, but to reflect some small, even slant aspect of the verse -- similar to Japanese haiga (illustrated haiku). I've also recently realized that although the dreamku (i.e. dream based poems) posted here tend not to have metaphor or simile, the accompanying photos almost always act as such.

To write a metaphor or simile into a dream scenario is something I rarely do. It can be confusing: did it really look like a hand, say, in the dream, or am I just being poetic to make my conscious point? As these dreamku act as a dream journal, my over-riding tendency is to try to stay close to the actual dream scenario itself. Admittedly making for a tendency to less "poetic" dreamku. Then why pay attention to any haiku, tanka, or monoku parameters at all when writing about my dreams? Because I find in even attempting to adhere to them I'm making choices that relieve my dream recall of a great deal of chatter so that I can get down to some important dream aspects. Here's a link to THE AREN'TS OF DREAMKU & ACCOMPANYING PHOTOS in which I go into some of the basic parameters for dreamku and the photos chosen to go with them (and with any non-dream based poems I post here, as well).

The archives in the sidebar hold years of the daily dreamku, tanka, monoku and photo posts I've made, grouped in one post by month. As I no longer post dreamku (or non-dream based poems) strictly daily, each post will appear below and then in the archives by the day on which it was posted.

There are many other sorts of posts here, not all dream-based. I indicate which are about or influenced by dreams. Some non-dream focused posts are book reviews, "regular" poems (some by other writers than myself), scifaiku, writing exercises, Tarot haiku, photos, haiga, and so on. However, most of those are in much older posts. There's a listing by month going back to early 2006 in the sidebar.

* * * *

‘til next time, keep dreaming,

[aka: Patricia Kelly]
**** If you wish to copy or use any of my writing or poems, please email me for permission (under “View my complete profile”) **** My other blogs: ROSWILA’S TAROT GALLERY & JOURNAL; ROSWILA’S TAIGA TAROT; and OPENING TO THE LIGHT ****