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| I died For beauty, But was scarce |
Deer Hit
Jon Loomis
You’re seventeen and tunnel-vision drunk,
swerving your father’s Fairlane wagon home
at 3:00 a.m. Two-lane road, all curves
and dips—dark woods, a stream, a patchy acre
of teazle and grass. You don’t see the deer
till they turn their heads—road full of eyeballs,
small moons glowing. You crank the wheel,
stamp both feet on the brake, skid and jolt
into the ditch. Glitter and crunch of broken glass
in your lap, deer hair drifting like dust. Your chin
and shirt are soaked
one eye half-obscured
by the cocked bridge of your nose.
still running, its lights angled up at the trees.
You get out. The deer lies on its side.
A doe, spinning itself around
in a frantic circle, front legs scrambling,
back legs paralyzed, dead. Making a sound—
again and again this terrible bleat.
You watch for a while. It tires, lies still.
And here’s what you do: pick the deer up
like a bride. Wrestle it into the back of the car—
the seat folded down. Somehow, you steer
the wagon out of the ditch and head home,
night rushing in through the broken window,
headlight dangling, side-mirror gone.
Your nose throbs, something stabs
in your side. The deer breathing behind you,
shallow and fast. A stoplight, you’re almost home
and the deer scrambles to life, its long head
appears like a ghost in the rearview mirror
and bites you, its teeth clamp down on your shoulder
and maybe you scream, you struggle and flail
till the deer, exhausted, lets go and lies down.
2
Your father’s waiting up, watching tv.
He’s had a few drinks and he’s angry.
Christ, he says, when you let yourself in.
It’s Night of the Living Dead. You tell him
some of what happened: the dark road,
the deer you couldn’t avoid. Outside, he circles
the car. Jesus, he says. A long silence.
Son of a bitch, looking in. He opens the tailgate,
drags the quivering deer out by a leg.
What can you tell him—you weren’t thinking,
you’d injured your head? You wanted to fix
what you’d broken—restore the beautiful body,
color of wet straw, color of oak leaves in winter?
The deer shudders and bleats in the driveway.
Your father walks to the toolshed,
comes back lugging a concrete block.
Some things stay with you. Dumping the body
deep in the woods, like a gangster. The dent
in your nose. All your life, the trail of ruin you leave.
swerving your father’s Fairlane wagon home
at 3:00 a.m. Two-lane road, all curves
and dips—dark woods, a stream, a patchy acre
of teazle and grass. You don’t see the deer
till they turn their heads—road full of eyeballs,
small moons glowing. You crank the wheel,
stamp both feet on the brake, skid and jolt
into the ditch. Glitter and crunch of broken glass
in your lap, deer hair drifting like dust. Your chin
and shirt are soaked
one eye half-obscured
by the cocked bridge of your nose.
still running, its lights angled up at the trees.
You get out. The deer lies on its side.
A doe, spinning itself around
in a frantic circle, front legs scrambling,
back legs paralyzed, dead. Making a sound—
again and again this terrible bleat.
You watch for a while. It tires, lies still.
And here’s what you do: pick the deer up
like a bride. Wrestle it into the back of the car—
the seat folded down. Somehow, you steer
the wagon out of the ditch and head home,
night rushing in through the broken window,
headlight dangling, side-mirror gone.
Your nose throbs, something stabs
in your side. The deer breathing behind you,
shallow and fast. A stoplight, you’re almost home
and the deer scrambles to life, its long head
appears like a ghost in the rearview mirror
and bites you, its teeth clamp down on your shoulder
and maybe you scream, you struggle and flail
till the deer, exhausted, lets go and lies down.
2
Your father’s waiting up, watching tv.
He’s had a few drinks and he’s angry.
Christ, he says, when you let yourself in.
It’s Night of the Living Dead. You tell him
some of what happened: the dark road,
the deer you couldn’t avoid. Outside, he circles
the car. Jesus, he says. A long silence.
Son of a bitch, looking in. He opens the tailgate,
drags the quivering deer out by a leg.
What can you tell him—you weren’t thinking,
you’d injured your head? You wanted to fix
what you’d broken—restore the beautiful body,
color of wet straw, color of oak leaves in winter?
The deer shudders and bleats in the driveway.
Your father walks to the toolshed,
comes back lugging a concrete block.
Some things stay with you. Dumping the body
deep in the woods, like a gangster. The dent
in your nose. All your life, the trail of ruin you leave.
“Eating Poetry”
Ink runs from my heart
There is no unhappiness like mine
I have become poetry
The librarian can’t believe it
Her eyes are happy
She walks with pep in her step
The poems are in me
The lights are bright
The dogs are coming around
They stare hard
There fur looks like fire
The old librarian begins to laugh
She understands
When i kneel and beg for mercy
She screams
I am reborn
I look at her and sigh
I walk away in the new dark
Meme:
**** Rap was emailed to you****
Authors note:
All of the poems and selections in this poem project are connected due to their minor and major ties with love and death. In the soliloquy or monologue portion of my project I choose Juliet's monologue. Juliet's monologue she speaks about her undying love for Romeo. In the song ‘love story’ by Taylor Swift the theme is forbidden love. Taylor takes on the role of Juliet and speaks of her love for Romeo although her dad will not allow it. At the end of the song Taylor speaks of how her dad came to his senses and allowed for the two to be together. In contrast the poem’s eating poetry and Deer hit , speak of sadness and death, these poems mirror the sadness lying within Romeo and Juliet's love story.
The poem eating poetry, describes a man ‘eating poetry’.By eating poetry I think the author is trying to describe a man who has just fallen in love with poetry, but it comes to a almost sad end when the librarian becomes upset. The poem ‘Deer hit’ describes a boy who hit a deer while driving drunk. When the author describes how life slowly left the sad animal, the boy does not know how to handle the situation. This poem contrast the sad death of Romeo and Juliet in the end of the original story.
All of theses poems contrast each other in love and death. The sadness described in one selection is mirrored in another with hints of love. Also the poems Deer hit and Eating poetry both show sadness and loss because both illustrate loss. In Eating poetry the character in the poem, seems to be losing his personality and character to the words of poetry on the page. In addition in the poem Deer hit the character watches as a animal losses life.
All of the poems in our project, have a theme of sadness, loss and love. All of these poems have sadness because they all see death or want something they cannot have. They all contain loss because of the loss of life and character within the poem. Also the all have love, because of the deep love for poetry, life and the people around you.
Finally I choose these poems because the words of love and loss touch my heart and make me understand the feelings of the author. These poems have taught me that love is a powerful force of nature that is more powerful than any other force.
My favorite part of this project was the idea of reading and analyzing poetry, but I disliked how unclear the instructions were.
Project Response: Keegan Krause:
While completing this project, I completed tasks 1 , 3 , 4 , 5 and the Authors note. When I was completing my tasks I found them fairly simple although at times the instructions were a bit unclear in my opinion. When I was completing task one I highlighted all of the non chosen words in black. I found this task quite simple and easy to complete.
Another one of my contributions is task three. I re-wrote the poem ‘Eating poetry’. I found this task to be easy for the most part. Although I was worried I might not be doing it correctly at times I still tried my hardest and tried to follow the directions.
My next contribution was task 4. This task was my favorite out of the entire project because I got to be creative and it is hard to mess up. Also It was fun to create a meme.
I also completed task 5. My job was to record a selection as a rap. I recorded the poem ‘ I died for beauty”. It was a simple task but I am not a very good rapper.
My final task was to write the authors note. This task was easy for the most part. Although I am not the best writer ever I still tried my hardest on the Authors note.
Overall this project has taught me a few things about poetry and although it was stressful at times it was still fun to be creative with poetry.
Emme contributed to the project by making it organized and creative. The project has all the information in the correct order and changed the fonts/ colors/size. With each part of the project looking neat, I also helped pick out one of the three poems. I also did 2,6,7, and 8 of the tasks. In task 2, I had to take a quote and make the background a picture that represented it which was the easiest task. Next was task 6. In task 6, I had to listen to different classic music pieces and match it with our theme, love. Task 7 was the hardest of all. 1000 characters may not seem like a lot, but it did take awhile to type the SAQ. And finally, task 8 was simple as well. Finding abstract art that represented love was pretty easy. I think without my contributions the project wouldn’t have been as organized and look good.
