Poetry Rocks

I love poetry. It makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand strait up. In poetry every single word gives the poem meaning. My favorite poet when it comes to word choice is E. E. Cummings who just creates his own words. I believe Billy Collins does the same thing. They combine words to create a new meaning. It also give the poem rhythm and shape. Word choice is the key element to poetry because one word could have so many different meanings. For example the word silent can me quiet but it could also mean still or with out movement. Poets must know connotations of words and can feel the words as they exist their mind onto paper.

Traveling through the Dark

BY WILLIAM E. STAFFORD

Traveling through the dark I found a deer

dead on the edge of the Wilson River road.

It is usually best to roll them into the canyon:

that road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead.

By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the car

and stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing;

she had stiffened already, almost cold.

I dragged her off; she was large in the belly.

My fingers touching her side brought me the reason—

her side was warm; her fawn lay there waiting,

alive, still, never to be born.

Beside that mountain road I hesitated.

The car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights;

under the hood purred the steady engine.

I stood in the glare of the warm exhaust turning red;

around our group I could hear the wilderness listen.

I thought hard for us all—my only swerving—,

then pushed her over the edge into the river.

This poem is one of my favorite poem because of its word choice and imagery. The many meanings and ideas this poem is alluding to just blows my mind. Lets start from the beginning. A man finds a dear on the side of the road and goes to inspect it. This is obviously not the first time the man has seen the deer. He sees that it is pregnant but he checks it and for a brief moment he pauses. He thinks about the baby deer but then he goes to push it off the road still. So, why is this not a common place thing? Well, it appears that the author is depicting the relationship between light and dark as well as man/technology and nature. In the third stanza the car becomes more personified. It’s red lights are like evil eyes peering at you and it is purring. Almost as if it were an animal itself. It was probably something like the car that “murdered” the deer. However, why is this deer so important? Well first of all its pregnant. It is carrying life inside. Also Stafford makes the deer seem more human. He doesn’t necessarily personify the deer but he makes appear that this deer is a bigger part of nature. 

“Traveling Through the Dark” the title mentions the word dark. Dark can mean a number of things. It could mean literal darkness, it can mean ignorance, but basically it means somewhere where there is not light or knowledge. Were the people who killed this deer ignorant or did they just not see it? Was the man who found the deer in the dark? Did he have a light? Where was he traveling? All questions this poem poses. One word can make or break a poem. Stafford uses his words beautifully.

The point of this poem is to make people think about our relationship with nature. Is man doing harm to nature? What do we really think about the things around us. The man in this poem was already going to push the deer off the road regardless of the baby. What does this tell us about the man? Does the man represent all of us? What is the dead deer? Why is the wilderness calling? Why does he hesitate? These questions are all self reflective. How you respond to them makes  you the person that you are. 

Our last project we had to write a short essay. Our ideas had to be short and concise. Every sentence had to count. Poems are just short essays. Every word has to be concise and everything said could have a different meaning. In my analysis essay I’m looking at a song which is a form of poem. I think that looking at the song like a poem could help me get more ideas for where I could go with my analysis. 

40 minutes