Dreams

A metaphor is an imaginative comparison that does not use “like” or “as.” Metaphors create a direct comparison between two or more different concepts, usually using “is.”

However, Pastan subtly constructs her metaphors without “is.” As the speaker wakes up from a dream, she observes that “the sky was starry to the very rind” (Line 33). By using rind, Pastan transforms the sky into fruit. The stars implicitly become seeds promising new life and possibility. The potentiality is so strong that it presses against the fruit’s outer skin.

To the reader, the comparison arises more organically and out of the moment than if she used “the sky is a fruit full of seeds.” Pastan also achieves subtlety by using a specific part of fruit rather than a more general description. The metaphor also embodies action since “to” makes it seem like the stars are so numerous and plentiful, they push against the sky.

Pastan wrote “Dreams” in the free verse form. Free verse is a poetic form that allows a poet to write unconstrained by a fixed meter or rhyme scheme.

A meter is a poem’s rhythmic pattern, usually set by the number of syllables per line or sequence of stressed (where a speaker emphasizes a word) and unstressed syllables.

Because people view dreams as illogical and non-linear, the free verse form allows for more free association and mirrors dreams’ instability. A fixed-form poem, like a sonnet, offers more stable ground because elements repeat, like creating a building brick by brick. Pastan’s only fixed pattern is six lines per stanza. The poem has the stability of someone talking about their dreams after waking. However, the dreams themselves remain unstable and unpredictable.