From the Internet: “Deer Hit” by Jon Loomis
read the poem first: https://poets.org/poem/deer-hit
“Deer Hit ” was a part of The Pleasure Principle written by Jon Loomis in 2001. It tells the story of a 17-year-old who went through an animal-vehicle incident while trying to drive himself home at 3 in the morning despite being under the influence.
You’re seventeen and tunnel-vision drunk, swerving your father’s Fairlane wagon home at 3:00 a.m.
Loomis began by putting us in the shoes a teenager who was drunk driving on his father’s Fairlane Wagon at 3 in the morning. While the teenager was–assuming with a driving license–legally allowed to drive, he was evidently below the legal drinking age of 21. So the the drinking part is an issue, let alone the drunk driving. Even though it wasn’t told explicitly how the teenager felt at that time, whether or not he still feel the anxiety of doing what you’re not supposed to do after all the regular drinking-and-driving-yourself-home in the early mornings he might have done, the first opening lines did a great job on setting the tone and circumstances for later throughout the poem.
The point of view in which Deer Hit is told makes it easier for the reader to sympathise with the teenager, as if the teenager himself is telling about how regretful he was and how he was subtly passing on the emotional trauma and remorse he felt. Another thing that’s brilliant about the point of view in which the story was told is that it allows the poem to use the word “you” over and over again, which constantly reminds the readers that they’re the one that’s been drunk driving–that they’re the one who hit a deer at 3 a.m. in the morning, as if saying “you’re him now, how would you feel–what would you do?”
Above all that, the part where the deer scrambles up to life and biting the teenager on the shoulder near the stoplight is the cherry on top of the night havoc despite the fact that deers aren’t any more prone to biting than any other herbivore in the forest (they prefer to charge you with their antlers as it turns out, which–let’s face it–would be more effective for deers if they want to hurt you) and to be bitten by an animal that’s not commonly known to be very “bitey” leaves an eerie note of peculiarity in the story. While the deer-vehicle collision is already a trouble by itself, the teenager still has some explaining to do, what made it even harder was that he had to do it to a figure of a drunk and angry father. This part leads up to when the father put the deer out of its misery, and the teenager had to go through the horror of witnessing it all.
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
The last bit of the poem signifies that that night never really passed for the teenager, the same goes for the feelings of uneasiness and regret of the things that had happened that night, the dark woods and the ghost of the deer he once dumped in it, the dangling headlight, the dent in his nose, along with all the ruins he left, all his life. The story may reflect much on the things we regret on our pasts, how they may not feel or sound as if it’s a big deal to other people, how isolating it could be sometimes to not be able to untie yourself from it. It also tells us that there may be times that we don’t fully understand how some people feel about even the smallest things and how it sometimes still lingers in the back of their minds no matter how minor it may seem. Deer Hit is a brilliant and light poem which speaks for those who may feel as though no one would understand what they’re going through and at the same time is a guide for those listening.
I give Deer Hit 4.5/5 stars.
