ROE-DEER

the text of the poem is on page 181 of your books

some introductory thoughts on what the poem is about

Hughes adds a specific date to this poem: 13th February 1973.  This underlines the diary-like quality of the poem, recording as it does a welcome and memorable encounter with two roe-deer on a road.  Roe-deer are wild creatures common in England, and are always shy of encounters with humans, traditionally hunters of these swift, elusive (and tasty) creatures.

Hughes treasured his encounters with wild creatures - he wrote about such throughout his career.  As he grew older, the presentation of such creatures became less uncompromising, emphasising at times their more congenial aspects.

Hughes presents his chance encounter with the two deer as a moment of memorable revelation, a special moment, which, in the context of a snowy February, is soon erased by the falling snow.

Typically of Hughes, describing the snowy weather vividly and strikingly is a task he relishes, using it as an(other) opportunity to show off his descriptive skills.

some questions to consider

• Hughes writes about the 'blue-dark' deer, rather than 'dark blue' deer - what's the effect of this choice?

• Hughes uses past tenses to describe his recollection of the deer: what's the effect of this?

• The poem is structured in couplets, but line 13 is a single line: what's the effect of Hughes choosing to do this?

• Hughes describes the vision of the deer in quite complex terms: what do you understand of the different elements of this description?  What is 'their two or three years of secret deerhood' and why did the deer 'plant' it 'clear on my snow-screen vision'?  What, in your view, does the phrase 'snow-screen vision' describe?

• What is 'abnormal' about the 'vision of the abnormal'?

• What does Hughes mean by the 'all-way disintegration'?

• Hughes imagines why the deer might wait for some seconds, staring at him: 'I could think the deer were waiting for me / To remember the password ...'  What sort of story is Hughes thinking of here?  (Remember that he's not talking about the kind of passwords we use to protect our online activity, as this poem dates from times before the internet.)

• What's magical about the moment of stillness which Hughes remembers?  Normally deer run away - we don't get to see them close up and still.

• Crucial is the word 'then' - the deer get moving, and from where Hughes is sitting, he can see where they go.  What's the effect of Hughes's phrase 'upright they rode their legs'?

• What is the 'boil of big flakes'?  How is the verb 'boil' working here?

• The snow revises its 'dawn inspiration' by covering the footprints of these two exceptional deer.  

• Hughes's simple phrase 'back to the ordinary' seems to embody the fact that the vision of the deer was out of the ordinary: do you think it's possible to write about 'ordinary' things in poems, or are poems most effective when presenting us with things which we feel are special?

• What in your opinion is the most important line or section of the poem, and why?

• What would you say is the main 'theme' of this poem?  Does the poem suggest more than simply a 'diary-entry' of an encounter with a deer?

• You might like to contrast this poem with The Horses - interestingly, Hughes seems to fix on the deer in this poem because of their unusual close-up stillness, something (for a few moments) very different from their customary, elusive speed, and quite similar (for those moments) to the 'megalith still' horses.

some creative writing to help you understand the poem more deeply

• How would you write a poem about a deer?  Try writing one of your own!  Is yours set in winter or in another season?  Check out the poems below for more inspiration.

some other lovely poems in English about deer

Whoso list to hunt * by Sir Thomas Wyatt

The Deer in the Glade * by Jean Anderson

The Deer in the Thicket * by Frank Huyler

Deer * by Helen Mort

To Kill a Deer * by Carol Frost

Deer Descending * by Philip Terman

Some (non-wintry) photos of deer * in the Calder Valley.

Teachers from Bristol Grammar School discuss the poem in this fantastic podcast *.

photo

Snowy road near Hargitafűrdö, Transylvania.  Photo - James Harding