In the Dream by Natalie Korman

In the Dream

by Natalie Korman

Everything seems whole and completely formed. Like a Hollywood movie, you don’t know what they leave out. It looks like it’s all there on the screen. Charismatic performers, fire, time travel, celebrity, humiliation, glory. Some of them are classics: I have to take a test I have not studied for.  Or the house I grew up in has been bulldozed. The dead visit me with notable frequency. Sometimes I am in control and mostly I am not. I am naked and ashamed, but then I realize I am not awake and I am no longer ashamed. But each time it is whole, like a plum you can reach through the screen and touch. It is all there. And in it, no matter where I am or what I am doing, I always have a body. Still, amazingly, I always, always have a body.

I love a great prose poem. And I remember when they started gaining popularity again in the 1990s (I say "again" because, like most forms, they have dipped in and out of poetry history for a long, long, long time)--they were controversial! A journal would publish a prose poem, and in the next issue there would be references to angry letters the editor received about "that's not a poem!" and "what is the world coming to?"

*And if you are not in Poetry World and you are smugly thinking, "What a silly thing for people to get upset about. A form of poetry?!?! A poem?!?! Ridiculous!" I can guarantee that your vocation has had just as many controversies about things that those of us on the outside would have the same reaction to.

Now, there are journals that publish nothing but prose poems. Anthologies of prose poetry. Workshops and essays and classes.

But back to today's blog poem.

This is one of those poem's that is both relatable and surprising, which is always a HUGE plus for a poem. The first sentence assures us that, yes, we are in familiar dream territory. But then the second sentence gives us a little jolt in the form of an incredible simile; yet we are still in the relatable. Then the list--what a great list! A bit surreal, giving us another surprise.

Then we go back to the relatable, what the speaker calls "the classics": the test not studied for, the childhood place gone, the dead popping in. After all of those specific details, we get this:

Sometimes I am in control and mostly I am not.

Yes! Our unconscious/subconscious is in control when we dreams, and they work together to keep us unbalanced.

And speaking of "no control" is the dream of nudity. I love what Korman does here with the shame part of this. in real life--yep, shame. But in a dream? Sure, I'll strut around buck naked. Why not? No shame here!

We start getting a little more serious with another simile (a comparison that uses "like" or "as"). We are told a few things about "it/the dream": it is whole, it is all there, and the speaker always has a body. (Normally, I hate the word "it" in a poem, but here, with the deliberate repetition, and after so many great details, it works.)

The last sentence ends the poem with a kind of awe about dreams, and a wee bit more repetition.

Still, amazingly, I always, always have a body.

It is amazing, isn't it? There's fire and time travel and dead people and all manner of surreal crazy stuff in dreams, but each of us walks around, gets in and out of spaceships, sits on a beach, waves at a talking zebra--we all have bodies in our dreams.

I feel like this poem takes us on a ride--a fun, pleasant ride with a guide who somehow knows us. It's a great poem about dreams.

It was originally published in Issue 6 of the Harpy Hybrid Review, and you can read it here. HHR doesn't only publish prose poems, but they do only publish hybrid work, which of course includes prose poems. Check it out!