A poem that bothers me is “Highway 12, just east of
Paradise, Idaho” written by Robert Wrigley. What bothers me is the description
of how a doe was killed. It breaks my heart to know that the animal was killed
and reading how her tongue was hanging out and her eyes were vacant. The poem
describes what happen to the doe, the doe “skated many yards… fell slowly”. The
narrator says “her neck caught a sign post that spun her across both lanes and
out of sight”. I don’t understand the reason to write a poem about a doe’s
death on highway 12 just east of paradise, Idaho. Maybe, the narrator was
scared that he hit the doe. The narrator caused an innocent doe to lose its
life. I can only imagine the narrator felt remorse and they may be why he wrote
the poem. At the end of the poem, after the narrator tells about the deer
hitting the sign post and spinning across the lanes and out of sight he says “For
which, I admit, I was grateful, the road there being dark, narrow, and
shoulderless”. Wondering why he was grateful for this, the conclusion that he
was grateful the doe landed on the side of the road instead of in the middle of
the road where someone could hit it again. He was grateful that it was dark so
that way when someone drives by the doe is out of sight so they wouldn’t see
the dead animal. He was grateful the road did not have a shoulder because
without a shoulder there is not a place for a car to stop, if a car pulled over
and stopped they could accidently find the dead doe and what a horrible
discovery that would be.
I also found this poem to be very sad and depressing. The narrator in my opinion went a little over board describing the scenerio of the doe death. Im glad I wasnt the only one who analyzed the poem as being disturbing. You made a good point on why the narrator felt glad for the doe landing out of sight. I feel upset when I see animals on the side of the road, dead.
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