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.
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