This year SPL has produced eight dream postcards for children and young people featuring the work of Scottish poets. You can view the texts and try some teaching ideas below.

The poems will also be available as illustrated e-cards nearer to National Poetry Day.

Dream Postcard 1

A little nap rap

When I got home one evening
to my cosy living room
I found a squirrel at my table
and a hedgehog with a broom.

A fox switched on the hoover,
beat my doormat with his tail,
while the squirrel did the kitchen
with a mophead and a pail.

The squirrel was all prickly
and the hedgehog had a tail,
the fox was dressed in tartan
while her coat hung on a nail.

The squirrel used the pulley
as trapeze, from side to side;
the fox slid down the banister,
the hedgehog did a glide.

My floor was very shiny
and everything was clean,
then suddenly I woke up
and found it was a dream!

Christine De Luca

From Goldfish Suppers: An anthology Of Contemporary Poems For Children and Families (City of Edinburgh Council, 2004)

Teaching idea for 'A little nap rap'

This poem creates a vivid picture of Christine's dream. Draw and label a picture to show all the animals and their activities as they are told in the poem.

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Dream Postcard 2

Eilean Fraoich

"Eilean fraoich, Eilean fraoich,"
ann an solus uaine
eadar d à bh ù th
air Sauchiehall St.

Island of Heather

"Island of heather, island of heather,"
in a green light
between two shops
at Sauchiehall St.

Iain Mac A' Ghobhainn / Iain Crichton Smith

Bho Eadar Fealla-dhà is Glaschu / From Eadar Fealla-dhà is Glaschu (Roinn nan Cànan Ceilteach, 1974)

Teaching idea for 'Eilean Fraoich/Island of Heather'

Is this a daydream? How might we tell? What could it be about? What unlikely associations trigger memories? Use the pattern of lines in this poem to make a short poem of your own about a memory triggered in an unlikely way.

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Dream Postcard 3

Spell

A clip of thinder ever the reeftips
sends like a bimb going iff!
My hurt thimps in my chist.

It's dirk. The clods are block with reen.
The wand blues in the trays.
There's no mean.

Carol Ann Duffy

From The Good Child’s Guide to Rock'n'Roll (Faber, 2003)

Teaching idea for 'Spell'

Carol Ann Duffy's playful exchange of vowel or consonant in many of the words shifts this poem to the verge of nonsense or another language. Explore the changes. Translate it! Why has she done this? How might this relate to the idea of dreams?

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Dream Postcard 4

Fram da far-haaf

Wake up man! Waken! Listen!

What?
What is it?

Oh what a dream I've had, what a dream!
You mustn't put out to sea today!
A voice was crying out to me
"This is the storm,
This is the first fierce cloud to gather"
Look to the west'ard!

A raincloud over the headland, a mist!

What a dream!
Foolish heart to fly in the face of omen.
The boat they found last Thursday,

A freak!

Upturned,
When the sea had been silent for days.
O, the dream I've had.

Robert Alan Jamieson

Extract from Fram da far-haaf: a sang-poyim fir twa voisis in Shetlandic and English (the author, 1992)

Teaching idea for 'fram da far-haaf'

This poem lends itself to a choral performace. There are at least two voices here, one very earnest, one sceptical and mocking, but more than one child can be involved in speaking the lines for each. Children can explore characterisation and expression as they give voice to the lines.

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Dream Postcard 5

No. 115 dreams

The living room remembers Gran dancing to Count Basie.
The kitchen can still hear my aunts fighting on Christmas day.
The hall is worried about the loose banister.
The small room is troubled by the missing hamster.
The toilet particularly dislikes my Grandfather.
The wallpaper covers up for the whole family.

And No. 115 dreams of lovely houses by the sea.
And No. 115 dreams of one night in the country.

The stairs are keeping schtum about the broken window.
The toilet's sick of the trapped pipes squealing so.
The walls aren't thick enough for all the screaming.
My parent's bedroom has a bed in a choppy sea.
My own bedroom loves the bones of me.
My brother's bedroom needs a different boy.

And No. 115 dreams of yellow light, an attic room.
And No. 115 dreams of a chimney, a new red roof.

And the red roof dreams of robin redbreasts
tap dancing on the red dance floor in the open air.

Jackie Kay

From The Thing that Mattered Most (Black & White/Scottish Poetry Library, 2006)

Teaching idea for No 115 dreams

The word 'dreams' in the title could be a noun or a verb - does it make a difference to the meaning? The house and its various rooms are thinking and dreaming. What would your house and its rooms think or dream about?

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Dream Postcard 6

Spell of the bridge

Hold the wish on your tongue
As you cross
What the bridge cannot hear
Cannot fall

For the river would carry
Your hopes to the sea
To the net of a stranger
To the silt bed of dreams

Hold the wish on your tongue
As you cross
And on the far side
Let the wish go first

Helen Lamb

From The Thing That Mattered Most (Black & White/Scottish Poetry Library, 2006)

Teaching idea for 'Spell of the bridge'

Discussion of the craft of the writer: What does the poet mean by the 'silt bed of dreams' and the 'net of a stranger'? What is she worried about in this poem? Look at the way words and lines are repeated - what is the effect of the repetition? The poet has personified the bridge and the river - how has she done this, and why?

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Dream Postcard 7

Brekin rainbows

He wis just a wee lad
dibblin in a puddle,
glaur fae heid tae fit,
enjoyin haen a guddle.
He micht hae bin a poacher
puin salmon fae the beck.
He coulda bin a paratrooper,
swamp up tae his neck.
Mibbe he wis brekin rainbows
reflectit in the watter,
his ill-shod feet wid split the prism
an mak the colours scatter.
Onywey he wis faur awa,
deep wandert in his dreams;
it richt sobert me tae mind
a dub's no whit it seems.
An while ah watched an grieved
the loss that maks a man a mug,
alang the road fair breenged his maw
an skelpt him roon the lug.

Janet Paisley

From The Thing That Mattered Most (Black & White/Scottish Poetry Library, 2006)

Teaching idea for 'Brekin rainbows'

This poem moves from the everyday to the imagined to the thoughtful and back to the everyday again. Can you mark the moments of change in the poem? Which lines do you like best in each of the sections?

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Dream Postcard 8

A riddle

Whaur the fit has never been
It's there ye aye gang wi' it:
Whaur the e'e has never seen
It's there ye aye will see it.

Whan ye ken that it is near
Nane but yersel' will find it:
Whan it is nae langer there
Nane but yersel' will mind it.

(A Dream)

William Soutar

From Collected Poems of William Soutar (Andrew Dakers, 1948)

Teaching idea for William Soutar's riddle

Try writing your own dream riddle. Make a list of the qualities of dreams, and then think about the opposites of those qualities, or think about the things you can do in dreams but can't in real life; then put together pairs of opposing or contradictory lines to tease the reader and make them wonder about the 'cans' and 'can'ts' of your topic.