September Symposiums: Made From Midnight Delirium

Made from Midnight Delirium 

I have seen some submission calls that specifically say they don’t accept poetry about dreams and I couldn’t DISAGREE more. Dreams are a little view into our psyche and should be shared. They have deep meaning and connection. Well clearly the folks who edited Made from Midnight Delirium agree that dreams deserve a platform. Bravo! 

Some standouts from the collection: 

I loved the simplicity and atmosphere created by Geraldine Connolly in: “Inside the Book in My Dreams.” This poem brings a book to life and provides hope in a strange and dream-like way. 

I really liked the very short piece “Cherita” by Barbara Anne Gaiardoni. In dreams, we often find ourselves revisiting places that only exist in our minds. This tiny poem is a great nod to that phenomenon. 

Dreams can be dark and reveal the ugliness of life. Jennifer Molnar’s piece captures this well. She examines time and her place in the world in a daily and relatable way. 

Another surrealist piece I enjoyed about the cosmos as juxtaposed with the realities of being human was Kelly Miller’s piece, “Gardens on the Moon.” This collection has a lot of escapist poetry that is grounded in the realness of life, very fitting in a dream collection. 

Poets love to write about deer, and Cielo Jones does it very well in her piece, “A Dream.” Her opening line is a real banger: “I follow a path through the forest/ into a village where letters and colors/ are married to each other.” 

Lara Adams Gaydos’ poem “Deep Dive” shows the anxiety of grief with a metaphor about diving that I appreciated and understood because my husband is a big diver. 

The whole section on water dreams was especially appealing to me and I liked this imagery from Anne Ramallo’s poem “Beneath the Waves”... “My fingers are a school of damselfish playing in your hull…” 

Leah Cass’ pieces appear a few times in the collection and each read I was impressed by her composition, the grounding in real life, and the clever titles of her work. 

The final piece in the collection is a happy ode to childhood and motherhood by Emily Daniel “Day Dreams.” Choosing this piece as the final shows what a well curated and thoughtful collection Poets in the Pines put together.