Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Marie Howe’s "Dream" is a meditation on transformation, estrangement, and the persistence of unresolved emotions, presented in a fluid, dreamlike structure that moves between memory, conversation, and symbolic imagery. The poem opens with a stark declaration: "Jane’s voice on the phone is grave and soft and strong. Her hair’s gone. I cut it off, she said." The act of cutting one’s hair is a powerful symbolic gesture—of shedding, of reinvention, of preparing for something inevitable. Howe likens Jane to "Joan of Arc now," a figure associated with martyrdom, strength, and tragic fate. This comparison suggests a shift in identity, a readiness for battle, but also an acceptance of an ending, possibly foreshadowing Jane’s mortality.

The imagery of animals follows—"Dogs bark at people they don’t know. All those barking dogs in my dreams! And now they know me and don’t bark." The reference to dreams reinforces the poem’s liminal quality, the way it oscillates between waking consciousness and a surreal, intuitive space. Dogs, often seen as guardians or sentinels, initially mark the speaker as an outsider. That they have stopped barking suggests familiarity, assimilation into a new state of being, or an acceptance into an altered world—perhaps the realm of grief, or a landscape beyond the known.

This transition between worlds is further reinforced by the next image: "A cat screams from the yard." Unlike the dogs that have fallen silent, the cat’s cry disrupts the scene, an unsettling intrusion of pain or warning. This cry, sharp and immediate, cuts through the muted dream logic of the earlier lines, anchoring the poem back into a moment of distress.

The poem’s most emotionally charged moment comes when the speaker recalls a statement from her father: "I’d live with you, but I wouldn’t marry you," spoken "offhandedly, from the couch." The casual cruelty of this remark, its dismissiveness, has stayed with the speaker, "burning in my heart." Though its meaning is not explicitly unpacked, it suggests a rejection that continues to haunt her, possibly shaping the way she experiences intimacy and self-worth. That the father is now dead only intensifies the weight of his words, making reconciliation impossible. The father’s presence in the poem is ghostly—alive in memory, but absent in reality.

Jane’s voice, by contrast, represents another world, "the world I entered when I decided to leave my father." This suggests that the speaker has actively chosen to separate herself from her father’s influence, forging a new existence. Yet, the lingering power of his words indicates that some wounds remain unhealed, that departure does not always equal liberation. The island metaphor that follows captures this instability: "Sometimes the island wavers and shimmers underfoot, but the bridge appears when you walk across it—that’s how it works, right?" The island, a symbol of isolation, identity, or transformation, is not solid. It is unstable, uncertain. The bridge, however, manifests only when one steps forward, implying that movement itself creates the path. This is a powerful metaphor for survival, for emotional navigation—the idea that clarity emerges only through action, that certainty is never guaranteed in advance.

The final line—"There’s no end to this."—leaves the poem open-ended, resisting closure. It suggests that grief, memory, and transformation do not resolve neatly; they continue indefinitely, shaping and reshaping the self. This lack of resolution mirrors the structure of the poem, which moves fluidly between thoughts, voices, and images, mimicking the way the mind processes loss and change.

"Dream" is a deeply introspective poem that captures the intersection of personal history, grief, and identity. Through its use of fragmented memories, surreal imagery, and quiet but piercing emotional revelations, Howe explores how past wounds remain alive in the present, how the people we lose continue to inhabit us, and how survival is often an act of faith—trusting that the bridge will appear beneath our feet.

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