At the end of class Tuesday, Dr. Porter pointed out that the title Poem "The Orchard" is compiled of lines that borrow images from poems throughout the collection. This forced me to look at it to try and find a key to unlocking the book. We've discussed that the poems are dream-like and seem cyclical, and I'm arguing that the collection of poems illustrates a reoccurring dream. In the poem "The Orchard" Kelly specifically states that the action is happening in a dream in the first line, "I saw the dog in a dream". I noticed that there are a few lines on the second page of the poem that talk about the dog transforming to two different forms, "as dream figures do". This reads to me as a subtle clue Kelly is giving the reader on her intent and execution of illustrating the speaker's reoccurring dreams. I googled a few different things to assist me on "dream figures" and the only thing I found was a quote that says good things come in threes. Of these "good things" dreams are listed, which would show that, if Kelly is referring to this quote, then the dream in the book has happened three separate times. I also noticed that earlier in the poem Kelly states that what happened in the dream was then seen again, when she visited the orchard, "I saw the dog in the dream. And then, days later... there he was. The same dog". My initial reaction was that the speaker was physically visiting the orchard, but after realizing that there are multiple dreams, I decided that this is the second dream the speaker's seen the dog in. Around the same place on the first page the speaker exhibits the uncertainty of lived experiences from dreamed experiences, "I lost the power to tell the figures/ In my dreams from those we call real". At first I thought this was revealing mental instability in the reader, but that changed into thinking about how someone reacts to becoming lucid in a reoccurring dream. The speaker saying that they've lost the power to tell the figures apart doesn't mean that they're seeing a figure they've previously dreamt of in reality; it means that the speaker is having the same dream but is conscious of the similarity and that it feels dream-like, so they question the reality of it. And the last dream is the same scene but through the doe's eyes. The speaker dreams about the deer getting eaten and killed, but from the does perspective, "She courted the hunter and he shot her/... the man stood/ Over her. A white shadow". The multiple dreams are not exactly the same, but more of a similar scene recreated many ways. I think this helps explain some of the unrealistic situations and transformations throughout the collection.
I really like this interpretation. I feel like as the poems develop in length and form throughout the book, the whole book begins to feel like a dream sequence increasing in intensity. There is little separation between waking life and a dreamstate, and with each poem either calling back or shouting forward to another in the book, it definitely makes sense that it's different interpretations of different reoccurring dreams. She can't escape what she is building in her head, so she tries to make sense of it, find beauty in the rubble. The statues definitely cemented (ha) that concept for me-- the statues as idolatry, but they're not being idolized; they are stone, which is supposed to be a more permanent material, but they're crumbling; they're a sign of human involvement, but they are surrounded by organic decay and neglect. I think that speaks volumes about the poet's own mind and attempt to sort through the messy and terrifying gorgeousness that happens when one is trying to figure out what constitutes reality and find out parallels and connections to make sense of their waking life by their subconscious thought processes during dreams.
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