Guess the Dream Poet - Part 2 (2014)

Guess which dream poets listed (or possibly omitted) in the dream anthology belongs in the blanks.

* * *

I'm sitting with a family. The boy is just learning how to play his trumpet. The father is lying on the same sofa that I'm sitting on. He's ____ and he keeps kicking me, pushing me with his feet and legs. I tell him to stop, but he won't. I'm getting angry, like I'm going to do something back to him soon if he doesn't stop.

* * *

I'm on a dark bus sitting next to ____. Somebody comes by and gets his/her name wrong. ____ is very offended. I don't really remember ____ name either. It starts with a J (Jete?), but the person said something that starts with a G. Getting the G and J mixed up seems to be what offends him/her the most.

* * *

____ is here sitting at a table with my family. I join them. My family is telling ____ writer-related stories. They're making fun of how I'm so to-the-point and interested in getting the facts right. An aunt makes a comment about Paris and the lights of the Eiffel Tower. I say, so basically you're saying I was an asshole to you in Paris. We all laugh. My grandmother tells a story about how she made a comment about some kind of ancient metal engraved object and how I pointed out all the inaccuracies of her comments, the dates, my birthday and dismissed everything she claimed with facts. We laugh although it's a little embarrassing to hear them talk about me as a writer.

* * *

I'm napping in a toddler car seat. ____ sits on top of me. He/she hardly weighs anything, so I don't say anything. Then his/her girlfriend climbs on and together they're too heavy. I tell them to get off. ____ tells his/her girlfriend that I'm infirm implying I'm old and falling apart. I tell people about this.

* * * 

A book by ____ has won an award. A blonde FoxNews anchorwoman aired a very offensive, racist and sexist segment on the book that upset people. Maybe she was trying to be funny, but she wasn't. She loses her job over it. She had poor judgement on the whole thing.

I have the book. I'm cutting out segments of poems and putting in newer editions of the poems. Part way through I realize that the version of the book I have is older, from the 80s or something. It's won a Pushcart or something, but the version everyone is talking about is the newer version, a selected. My version is called something like "Magic" but the newer version is something like "Capital Magic." I wish I didn't mess with the poems now, but it's too late.

* * *

I'm trying to wind up ____ to say something obnoxious about poetry. He/she says that he/she's watching everything like nuclear reactors, but right now, nothing is going off. I make some jokes and then leave.