Poems on the theme of dreams:

These are some of the poems I use with my students to spark ideas for writing about dreams (read my previous post for more details!): 

•  “Last Night I Dreamed of Chickens,” Jack Prelutsky 
•  “A Dream Deferred,” Langston Hughes
• “Stars,” Langston Hughes
• “Let America Be America,” Langston Hughes
• “Still I Rise,” (especially the last stanza) Maya Angelou
• “City That Does Not Sleep” Federico Garcia Lorca
• “Romance Sonambulo,” Federico Garcia Lorca 
• “My Dream of Being White,” Lucille Clifton

One student, Kiki, was inspired by these lines from Maya Angelou’s poem, “Still I Rise”:

Out of the huts of history's shame

I rise

Up from a past that's rooted in pain

I rise

I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,

Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise

Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I rise

I rise.

 In response Kiki wrote this: 

I am the dream

a poor man’s daughter

strong, black and beautiful.

I am a poor man’s daughter,

his one great joy.

I am the child

the child of a poor man.

Ah, but I am the rich one.