How Poetry Matters.

To understand how and why poetry matters so much to me, let me share a poem with you, and allow me to also share with you some of my thoughts about the poem. First the poem:

Traveling through the Dark By William 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.

.

5 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—

10 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.

15 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.

In poetry the subtle meaning of words matter.

Consider the title of this poem Traveling through the Dark. Notice in the poem that what the speaker of the poem is doing is driving. The word Traveling and Driving may have similar meanings, but their differences in meaning are more glaring than similar. Driving is just moving in a car. Traveling implies a journey. Life is not a drive, life is a journey. By using the word Traveling instead of the word Driving the poet has hinted to us that this poem is about more than just something that happened on the way home.

Now look at lines 1 and 2. The poet ends line 1 with the word deer and begins line 2 with the word dead. But that is not the natural way to say it. Normally what we would say is dead deer not deer dead. By putting the words on different lines you get a petite surprise. Your eye sees the word deer, and then the eyes have to move to the beginning of line 2 where we are slightly surprised by the word dead. This is just like it is with such situations. You are driving on a dark road and you are just a little bit shocked by the sight of a large animal dead in the road. The placement of the words, and the reversals of normal word order has communicated a little surprise.

Look at line 6 where the speaker tells us that he gets out of the car and stands by: heap, a doe, a recent killing. By putting commas between the words it forces the eye and the mind to slow down. This guy sees the situation in stages. First all he sees is a heap. Then he notices it is a female deer. Finally he sees that this doe has only recently been killed. Usually, when we encounter death we do so in stages. The gruesome details take place in stages.

Now notice line 11. The speaker of the poem knows that the doe is pregnant, and inside its body the fawn continues to live. The speaker says that this fawn is: alive, still, never to be born. He doesn’t say simply that the fawn is still alive. He takes that word still and isolates it between commas, and by doing so, he sends us three messages:

The fawn is still because it is not moving.
The fawn is still alive.
The fawn is still-born.

In line 13 the speaker says that the car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights. The word aimed is often associated with a weapon. In this case the car is a weapon. It was a car that killed the doe.

In line 17 the speaker says I thought hard for us all—my only swerving. The word swerve was used earlier in the poem (line 4) to swerve might make more dead. At the beginning of the poem not swerving caused the death of the deer, but it also saved the driver from perhaps going over the edge into an icy river in an attempt to avoid hitting the deer. Now at the end of the poem, swerving causes yet one more death, the death of the fawn.

We are left contemplating the issues of life and death. We consider the fact that for life to continue it very often depends on death of something else. It may not be pleasant to cause the death of another living thing, but at times the lives saved are worth the death of something else. Everyone may not agree. The matter is debatable. The poem brings significance and context to that debate.