Deer Hit

From its title alone, it is clear that “Deer Hit” uses figurative language and wordplay to convey a rueful, at times darkly comic, narrative illustrating both the consequences of bad decisions and the unavoidable imposition of bad luck. No comma or other punctuation indicates an inversion here, where “hit” might modify “deer.” Still, at first glance the title seems to refer to a hit deer, with the traditional syntax reversed. But Jon Loomis’s title purposefully invokes the colloquial, slang definition of “hit” as an execution, as if to suggest the young person in the poem fulfills the role of deer killer with responsibility and resignation, his unavoidable duty. Thus, from the title of the poem, the narrative’s central figure plunges toward destruction as the apotheosis of his character.

Second person narratives like “Deer Hit,” in poetry, novels, and even in some nonfiction works, mostly assume an understanding of a hypothetical “you,” who is neither the poet nor the reader. This particular point of view even distances the speaker from a place at the center of a narrative. Second person invites collegiality from the reader, an invitation to know how such things may be.