I woke up about 4:30 a.m. Thursday and thought about going upstairs to get some work done. Instead, I fell back asleep, and I’m glad I did. I dreamed about Bob Dylan, and while I have been a Dylan fan for a long time, but this is the first dream I can recall ever having about him.

He was playing a cafe concert before maybe a dozen fans in Jordan and had a huge grin, the like of which I have never seen on him in real life. And he was eager afterward to talk, sounding a lot like the 20-year-old Dylan you see in old documentary films.

At one point he asked me how I get writing students excited about the rich possibilities of creative uses of language. I said it was hard and sometimes I used examples from him (which is true, although I have not done it in a long time; sorry if I misled you, dream Bob). His advice: “Have them read Percy Post.”

I wasn’t going to admit to him that I had no idea who Percy Post was. I still don’t, but if I ever figure it out, I will make my students read every word he wrote.