The Dream Poet Anthology 2012

Below are the names of poets who made appearances or were mentioned in my dreams during 2012. Some of these poets I know well, others are acquaintances and some are complete strangers. If you find your name is on this list and you do not know me, it means that I know of you via your work or reputation and my psyche has attached some type of meaning or symbolism on you to represent something.

Or maybe it means something else completely. Who can say with any certainty what a dream means? Maybe it means you've been selected for a psychic quest of great importance? Maybe it means I'm watching you through a pair of binoculars at this very moment? Who knows. Just don't ask me for details of the dream. Seriously, don't.

2012 Contributors:


Scott Abel, Deborah Ager, Sandra Beasley, Hugh Behm-Steinberg, Matt Bell, Zachary Benavidez, April Bernard, Tara Betts, Lucy Biederman, Julie Bloemeke, Anne Boyer, Ana Božičević, Somner Browning, Julianne Buchsbaum, Jenna Cardinale, Kelly Cockerham, Shanna Compton, Eduardo Corral, Gerald Costanzo, Bruce Covey, Karen Craigo, Phil Crippen, Catherine Daly, Peter Davis, the “youngest” Dickman brother who is still a teenager, Sharon Dilworth, Oliver de la Paz, Kate Durbin, Thomas Sayers Ellis, Jill Alexander Essbaum, Steve Fellner, Ryan Flaherty, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Elisa Gabbert, Neil Gaiman, Susana Gardner, Roxane Gay, Bernadette Geyer, Tod Goldberg, Rigoberto González, Nada Gordon, Noah Eli Gordon, Rae Gouirand, Lea Graham, Paul Guest, Charlie Jensen, Saeed Jones, Tayari Jones, Wendi Kaufman, Matt Kirkpatrick, Amy King, Rauan Klassnik, Jennifer L. Knox, Shafer Hall, Joseph Harrington, Kaplan Harris, Matthew Hittinger, Ton van 't Hof, Dave Housley, Amy King, Stieg Larsson, John Edward Lawson, David Lehman, Amy Lemmon, Emily Lloyd, Tao Lin, Helen Losse, Rebecca Loudon, Tony Mancus, Joe Massey, Cate Marvin, David McDonald, Erika Meitner, Gwendolyn Joyce Mintz, Ben Mirov, Anita Naegeli, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Hoa Nguyen, Daniel Padilla, Danielle Pafunda, G.M. Palmer, Karl Parker, Richard Peabody, Scott Pierce, Bill Piestch, Robert Pinsky, PF Potvin, Liam Rector, Rob Roberge, Tony Robinson, Steve Roggenbuck, Lee Ann Roripaugh, Ken Rumble, Carly Sachs, Metta Sama, Standard Schaefer, Michael Schiavo, Zachary Schomburg, Laura Sheahen, Frank Sherlock, Evie Shockley, Kim Gek Lin Short, Ricco Siasco, Martha Silano, Sandra Simonds, Tupac Shakur, Dale Smith, Frank Stafford, Nicole Steinberg, Brent Terry, Tony Tost, Catherynne Valente, Rich Villar, Chris Vitiello, James Wagner, Fritz Ward, Roxanne Halpine Ward, Joshua Marie Wilkinson, Jim Woessner, Allyssa Wolf, C. Dale Young, Dean Young


Frequently Asked Questions


Q: I'm a writer, but not a poet. Why am I included on a poet list?
A: Simmer down and accept the compliment.

Q: Can I submit my work for next year's anthology?
A: This anthology only accepts psychic submissions. Submit to my unconscious and perhaps you will be allowed in.

Q: Does my appearing on this list mean that you are obsessed with or stalking me?
A: Possibly.

Q: Will you tell me the details of the dream I appeared in?
A: No, absolutely not. Assume the dream was totally demented and would disturb you a great deal.

Q: I'm a poet and I'm psychically awesome, why aren't I included in this anthology?
A: There are three possible reasons you are not included:

1. You didn't appear in my dreams in 2012. Resolve in 2013 to be more ambitious psychically.
2. You did appear in my dreams, but I don't remember. I forget many dreams. Your omission is a simple case of editorial oversight. You were screwed, unintentionally.
3. You did appear in my dreams, but I am loathe to publicly admit such a thing. This applies to a small percentage of poets appearing in my dreams. Your omission is a simple case of editorial bias. You were screwed, intentionally.


Dream Poet Anthology Mad Libs:

guess the dream poet - part 1 (2012)

guess the dream poet - part 2 (2012)

guess the dream poet -- part 3 (2012)

guess the dream poet -- part 4 (2012)

guess the dream poet -- part 5 (2012)

Past anthologies:

The Dream Poet Anthology 2011

The Dream Poet Anthology 2010

The Dream Poet Anthology 2009

thanks and all

Yesterday morning in yoga the ongoing conversation was who's making what for Thanksgiving and the whole concept of gratitude. I was the only person in the room not hosting a dinner. At the time all that came to my mind was that I was grateful that I wasn't the person responsible for Thanksgiving. I didn't share everyone else's enthusiasm for the holiday and whoah, those ladies were really excited about their stuffings and pumpkin flans. I don't dislike the holiday, I like food, love turkey and pumpkin pie. It's just it's a lot of work, before, during and after for what feels like just a massive meal. I get excited for Christmas Eve, it's evening, there's music and decorations and drinks and hors d'oeuvres and a big ass tray of cookies and presents and the Santa tracker. That's a party! So I host that. I figured that what I'm grateful for is that there are others who want to do the things I'm mostly ambivalent for and I'm grateful that I have the opportunity to do what I feel passionate about. Not everybody wants to cram a 12-foot tree into a room with a 10-foot ceiling. I get that. Different strokes! Your holiday preferences are valid too.

I felt pretty good coming to that conclusion but that didn't prepare me for how I was going to feel later that evening. A few weeks ago Didi Menéndez wrote to say that she was putting together a "Best of MiPOesias" and was going to use my poem "That's Not Butter" and asked if I had new work to send. I sent a new poem with audio. She sent a galley. I figured it would be out by the end of the year and didn't think much more about it.

What I wasn't expecting was this long, well-considered and in-depth review of my work: The Oracle and Reb Livingston by Jack Anders. To say that it made my day would be an understatement. Sometimes it feels like such an incredible feat just to get someone to read your poems, let alone make the effort to compellingly write about them.

I'm also grateful for the interview Julie Bloemeke did with me back in October regarding the Bibliomancy Oracle at the Best American Poetry blog.

While this year has been a pretty good one for me in many ways, I've struggled redefining my work and my role as a writer. I'm not calling myself an editor or publisher these days because I'm not doing those things now. Maybe again in the future, but not now.

Mostly this struggle has been getting over my numerous fears and self-criticisms that I build to such heights of dipshittery, sometimes my world comes to a complete halt and I can't manage to restart. I'd been beating myself up all year that I wasn't productive enough, that I was squandering my time. I wasn't used to having the time to spend on my own work. Maybe I felt more guilty instead of grateful for the opportunity. Maybe I thought I'd dash out a 300 page novel in 6 months and when that didn't happen I felt like a loser. I had it in my head that I maybe wrote 40-50 pages. In late September, I decided to print out everything I wrote in 2012. It was a 184 pages. That's not going to break any records and I'm certainly not going use all of it, but looking at that stack of papers made me realize that what I'd been telling myself wasn't true. I was working, which doesn't mean that I shouldn't work more or smarter, but clearly the mental shit I put myself through is totally stoopid and unnecessary. I don't do myself any favors when I'm this way.

It's almost December and my novel-esque book (not sure what to call it yet) is nowhere near finished. If you're interested in perusing some first drafts I've done along the way, I post some of them here. I have a 79 page draft that I'm hoping will reach 100 pages by the end of 2012. I certainly need another year, if not longer, to finish it. But I'm getting there and yes, it's really strange and there's always the very real possibility calling it a novel won't make many people interested and maybe it'll receive the dreaded cricket review. I can't worry about that now.

On this matter the Bibliomancy Oracle says:

Oblivion scattereth her poppy, and besides
it’s time to go inside now,
feed the aggressive pets, forgive our trespasses
for trespassing against us.



*



from “Not Beyond All Conjecture” by “John Ashbery”

new shoes

A happy summer and hopefully a more productive autumn (for me) now that G is back in school -- 2nd grade!

Grown a** man. That's all I got to say. Or all I can say. Now that he's a GAM, I need to be respectful of his wishes and privacy. The days of bodily function updates are long past and hence I'm in the wishy washy position of lacking a standpoint. Ok, that's an illogical leap, but there is a shifting standpoint going on and what once was is no more, in many ways. I keep having dreams that I'm walking outside barefoot, my feet cut and infected or I'm trying to avoid stepping on a cobra, but I'm pulled down and freak out as the snake goes up my back under my shirt.

I have a number of drafts, poetry and some fiction, but little ready to put out there at the moment because much of it is waiting for something: a new standpoint since my old one slipped away. So I keep working and try not to worry. Eventually I'll get my ruby slippers.

While I don't have a great deal of "finished" work, I do have some, including a new poem in issue 13 of Eleven Eleven along with work by Azra Abbas, Sarah Bartlett, Aleksandr Blok, Michael Boughn, Eduardo Chirinos, Saehee Cho, John Colburn, Victor Coleman, Daniel Curzon, Sophia Dahlin, Molly Each, Joanna Fuhrman, Amy Glynn Greacen, Judy Halebsky, Matt Hart, Gretchen E. Henderson, Ashaki M. Jackson, Lindsey Lee Johnson, D Sprung Kurilecz, Travis Kurowski, Sean Labrador y Manzano, ali lanzetta, Rebecca Loudon, Saadat Hasan Manto, Kyla Marshell, Clay Matthews, Myron Michael, Kishwar Naheed, Mónica Nepote, Linda Norton, Naomi Buck Palagi, Diana Park, Mira Pasikov, Tami Cox Rasel, Eugenia Rico, Lee Ann Roripaugh, Judy Roitman, Sarah Rosenthal, Thaddeus Rutkowski, Benjamín Alire Sáenz, Floyd Salas, Metta Sáma, Mary Ann Samyn, Sommer Schafer, Gregory Sherl, Kedarnath Singh, Dayana Stetco, Esther Tellermann, Ryôichi Wago, Valerie Wallace, Udayan Vajpai, Al Young and Zarina Zabrisky, plus interviews with Kay Burns and Chitra Ganesh.

Also, although it's from some time ago and a previous standpoint (snort!), my first collection, Your Ten Favorite Words, published by Coconut Books in 2007 is now available at SPD along with the rest of the Coconut catalog. Take a walk down memory lane and buy it, why don't you.

I looked back on my handful of posts over the summer and they were all about the Bibliomancy Oracle. Well, I did a lot of work and am really proud of it. So far there's 850 prophecies taken from literature, mostly poems. My goal is 1200 prophecies by the end of 2012. What is the perfect number of prophecies? I think it's one of those you'll know it when you see it type things.

How do I get my ruby slippers?:

Little fish, you would never, would you, simply

give up and fall back to the water, limply?

*

from “Exercises” by Bill Coyle

Well then, I shall not go limply back into that water.

tarot/bibliomancy combo reading

Occasionally I supplement one type of divination with an additional one. It can help break open a narrow reading/interpretation, sometimes broadening perception or sometimes confirming the exisiting. I did this with a recent Tarot reading. I used the "World" spread from Rachel Pollack's Tarot Wisdom: Spiritual Teachings and Deeper Meanings, my favorite book on the subject. My question was in regard to my current writing project. It's like I'm trying to drive cross-country in a constantly stalling lawnmower.

For each Tarot card I selected, I used the Bibliomancy Oracle for a corresponding response. Below is what I got (with brief interpretations of the cards):




Card #1 (High Priestess position) – What’s the inner truth?: Empress (passion, embracing life with all its messiness & horror)



Corresponding Oracle #1:

There is nothing that controls our thoughts
more than what we think we see,
which we label “we.”

from “If a Garden of Numbers” by Cole Swensen

Card #2 (Star position) - What hope does it promise?: The Chariot (success, movement, persona)


Corresponding Oracle #2:

When will the sky quit falling?
(That’s our motto.)

from “Pathetic Pathetic Fallacy” by Patty Seyburn

Card #3 (Moon position) – What journey must I make?: 7 cups reversed (act on fantasies)


Corresponding Oracle #3:

My religion makes no sense
and does not help me
therefore I pursue it.

from ”My Religion” by Anne Carson

Card #4 (Awakening) – What great thing awakens?: 8 of Cups reversed (the lack of connection between head & heart)


Corresponding Oracle #4:

Ask a good question:
You’ll have success immediately.

from “How can we know the journey from the path?” by Kathleen Ossip

Card #5 (Gift of Rivers) – What is the gift: Ace of Pentacles reversed (problems around security, new phase in life)

Corresponding Oracle #5:

A little piece please. Cane again to the presupposed and ready eucalyptus tree, count out sherry and ripe plates and little corners of a kind of ham. This is use.

from “Tender Buttons [Apple]” by Gertrude Stein

Yeah, nothing like Gertrude Stein for clarity. With Ace of Pentacles reversed and this Getrude Stein quote, I interpret the "gift" as my moving out of my "safe" zone that I've been inhabiting for the past couple of years. I've been restricting myself, sticking to what I know. Perhaps it's time to count out the sherry, ripe plates and ham -- finding use in letting go of comfort. The gift is taking risks. I admit I have not been embracing messiness and horror, I've been kind of avoiding it.

One of the things I like about Bibliomancy in general is that it can give an answer with another question because sometimes we're not asking a "good" one and need to focus our direction elsewhere. Often it seems that I focus my attention in a tunnel vision sort of way under the guise of will and determination. I keep expecting it all to eventually "make sense." I decided I'm going to let myself get lost, the more lost the better, for how ever long it takes. To hell with the blueprints and map. I'll make that up when I'm done.

dream interpretation via the bibliomancy oracle

One way I've been using the Bibliomancy Oracle is to offer another avenue for dream interpretation. I'm finding the results to be pretty fascinating and an excellent method to discover unseen possibilities.


Dream Example: Chris bought a new car. The dealer convinced him to buy two black jaguars (as in the cats) to go along with his (non-jaguar) car. I'm unhappy that Chris did this -- what are we going to do with wild animals? We can't control them, I insisted. As I drove the car down our old street, three black jaguars headed for us.  I tried to avoid them, but they kept coming. I drove away and saw in the rearview mirror that they were in pursuit. I sped up and took highways that I wasn't familiar with that brought us to a high school sports ceremony dinner. It's not the dinner we were planning on attending, but it would do. I looked at my watch and it showed that two of the jaguars were 0 miles away, they were very close. The third jaguar was several miles away. My watch also told me how many tears the jaguars shed.

What is the first black jaguar?

Arms can move a head, that’s the trouble;
feet argue constantly with other feet
and treat the ground poorly.

from “Conspiratory Love Poem Addressing All Imaginable Possibilities” by Shafer Hall

What is the second black jaguar?

This is a night of evenly spaced-
out escalators. This is a night of werewolves.


from “This is a Night of Evenly Spaced-Out Escalators” by Zachary Schomburg

What is the third black jaguar (the one farther behind)?

what is love without arrows?

Mistake

from “The Young Astronomer In His Ecstasy” by Miguel Murphy

What do the jaguars want?

It must be so lonely. Selling shoes
for eternity, never learning any new jokes.
  

from “Of All The Dead People I Know” by Karyna McGlynn

What are the jaguars’ tears about?

remember the mystery/light when you were

new you can learn the body

again you can get wasted

like a language the desert is also a distance


from “Map of the Things You Forgot” by Cindy St. John

What will happen if/when the jaguars catch me?

one-twelfth of our lives is wasted
standing in a line.



from “They say” by Laura Kasischke

What is this high school celebratory dinner about?

Use your imagination. Close your eyes
and make a wish. Say the magic words.



from “Late Invocation for Magic” by Jim Daniels

Hmm, ok, I better go make that wish now.



Last night I asked the oracle for today's mantra:

Shut your eyes to what a worm he is, concentrate on his caress—but know

Every half-truth is bound to call up its suppressed synoptic double.


from “I Too Have Been to Candyland” by Anthony Madrid

Well, ok then, shutting my eyes as I type.

cats with crowns

The big news is that on Saturday, July 7 I'll be hosting a reading by Bruce Covey, Kim Gek Lin Short and Lee Ann Roripaugh at my home. If you're in or close to NoVa that night and would like to attend, backchannel for details. It will be a regal affair. Poetry royalty, some might say.


Lost? Looking for guidance? Need an unbiased source to turn to? Want to stumble across some new poems? At this writing, The Bibliomancy Oracle has over 600 possible answers. New answers are added every week. This has probably been one of my favorite creative projects in a long time. I'll be actively working on it all summer.


Something else I'm enjoying is Pinterest. It's like being the editor of your very own glossy magazine--without having to deal with writers, proofreaders, designers, photographers, artists, advertisers, investors, pr -- and you can put together pretty much anything.  The best part is that you can follow people by subjects, so if you really like a person's book recommendations and art links, you can follow those, without being bogged down by their obsessive food porn (or whatever you'd rather not clog your feed).


Speaking of categories, the way people categorize things is rather interesting. For instance, if you go to the art category and see what some people categorize as art . . . well, to each her own . . . I'll be over here judging quietly to myself.


I'm becoming aware of certain words and phrases that bug or creep me out. For instance, "yum" or "yummy" -- I try not to follow anyone's categories with those words, whether or not they're about food or not (often, they aren't about food). Same goes for "delicious" -- ESPECIALLY when it's not about food. When someone refers to a human being as delicious--call me old-fashioned, but all I can think of is cannibalism. I'm about to unfollow someone's non-food category called "Visual Treats" because "treats" evokes a similar response, even if it's a picture of a designer handbag. I'm borderline on categories with the words "inspire" or "inspiration" as well as phrases like "idea sparkers." That's less creep factor and more dork alert.

I think I dislike cutesy unless it's truly bizarre or over-the-top goofy. I don't see enough of that. "Life Affirming Kitchen Spigots." I'd follow that.

bibliomancy oracle update

Getting lots of positive feedback about the Bibliomancy Oracle. I'm still adding to it everyday and will be for the immediate future. It's been my impetus to discover some new (to me, at least) poetry magazines and read a lot more poems. When selecting texts, I try to include a variety of shades, different types of responses for the many types of questions that might be asked. While I try not to include anything that is obviously disturbing or ominous, there's no "you will perish tomorrow in a fiery automobile accident" response, the Oracle certainly can offer responses that people won't want to hear. Of course, the same response may be welcomed by one questioner to her answer while it may be taken less enthusiastically as the answer to another's question. The oracle is worthless if it's all sunshine and pixie sticks and one person's sunshine and pixie sticks is another's sunburn and smelling salts.

Also, a lot has to do with how the questioner interprets the answer. When you're looking for one thing, you might overlook what's being presented. Often times the answer someone is hoping to receive isn't really what would benefit her. Just because you want that job, or that particular lover, or whatever, doesn't mean it would bring the happiness you'd expect it. So a "it's not gonna happen" response doesn't necessarily mean doom and gloom.

I intend for the Oracle to be useful --whether it's used for perspective, guidance or creative prompts. Bibliomancy has a rich history and began during the early days of printed books. I love this anecdote mentioned in the bibliomancy Wikipedia entry:

English poet Robert Browning used this method to ask about the fate of his enchantment to Elizabeth Barret (later known as Elizabeth Barret Browning). He was at first disappointed to choose the book "Cerutti’s Italian Grammar", but on randomly opening it his eyes fell on the following sentence: ‘if we love in the other world as we do in this, I shall love thee to eternity' (which was a translation exercise).