Dream rooms

Volume 7 Number 1 January 10 - February 13 2011

Dream Rooms (below) by Matthew Dobson, a student in the Bachelor of Medicine & Bachelor of Surgery and Bachelor of Medical Science course, was the winner of the John Masefield Prize in Poetry which was established in 1937 and is available in alternate years.

The prize is administered by the Academic Board with the judging panel of three members established by the Head of the English Department in the Faculty of Arts, in accordance with the trust regulation. Candidates must be enrolled students of the University of Melbourne and must submit an original poem of not more than 50 lines in English on a topic chosen by the President of the Academic Board. In 2010 the topic was ‘Breadth’ and 38 eligible entries were received.


For people with broken brains
or a real lack of ideas
the red brick building downtown
specialises in dreamscapes.

I have just come from the carnival
in the room next to the plane crash,
the ferris wheel scraping the ceiling
and fairy floss stuck to the carpet

and before that, the cemetery
where I walked with my head bowed
and my hands in my coat pockets
reading the names on gravestones.

Now there is a beach.
The sky is as broad as shoulders.
It is deserted except for two lovers
who are trying to ask for directions

from an old man standing behind a tree
muttering phrases to himself,
one of which must be the password
for wherever it is we’re going next.