The Orchard seems to be a stream of consciousness as if the poet were explaining a dream. Imagery is built with repeated scenes and descriptions through colors. The visuals of a big, white hungry dog, a horse, a dead dear, blood, the dark sky, the orchard, the eating of the apple that eventually turns to a heart. It seemed to be a transformation that is happening through symbols. I found the each scene to be very odd. The voice in the poem desires to throw an apple at the dog because the dog is eating a deer and then the voice is thinking of guns and how hunters want to kill deer for the rush to obtain a piece of the deer's "improbable swiftness." It is hard to make anything out of it without context or some direction. In the poem the voice complains, "I could not sleep." There is a possibility that this particular poem is about insomnia and even "waking dreams," where the person dreaming doesn't quite know whether they are awake or not because their insomniac condition. Speculation on what the poem means from an allegoric perspective is debatable. From my experience, dreams are evidence that the mind is not shutting down to rest. The mind's gears are still turning, the power plant is on. Anxiety or stress can creep in the subconscious during sleep or create lack there of and with The Orchard, this feels like this could be interpreted as that.
Thanks for your explanation. This does seem to be a stream of consciousness and the speaker does elude to the fact that this is more of a dreamlike feeling. These images are all so very explicit, but what do they mean? You mentioned that the speaker could be commenting on their mental state. I have been trying to find a connection between the images, but I cannot construct an idea that encompasses multiple images. As someone else mentioned in a previous post, there is a lot of grotesque imagery riddled throughout all of these poems which is what has caught my attention in this piece. I am curious what effect this creates and how it aids to this poem in particular.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your explanation. This does seem to be a stream of consciousness and the speaker does elude to the fact that this is more of a dreamlike feeling. These images are all so very explicit, but what do they mean? You mentioned that the speaker could be commenting on their mental state. I have been trying to find a connection between the images, but I cannot construct an idea that encompasses multiple images. As someone else mentioned in a previous post, there is a lot of grotesque imagery riddled throughout all of these poems which is what has caught my attention in this piece. I am curious what effect this creates and how it aids to this poem in particular.
ReplyDeleteWhile there is definitely a great deal of lucidity to the poem's structuring, I think one of it's functions is a criticism of the doe trope. There is a tradition of does standing in for women predominately in court poetry and everywhere else really. However, these poems rarely explore the violent nature of the hunt allegory. This is why monarchy is present in the text, and the doe "courts" the dog who is even referred to as "the hunter" in the latter half of the poem.
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