Deer Hit

“In the Secular Night“ by Margaret Atwood (1995)

This second-person narrative also begins, like “Deer Hit,” with a specific location and time of day in the first two lines. Also like “Deer Hit,” “In the Secular Night” constitutes a true second-person point of view. Other poems may have brief second-person sections, or may have an implied first-person speaker addressing a single person who is not the reader. In Atwood’s poem and in Loomis’s, the second-person narrative stands in for a first-person experience. In “Deer Hit,” details from the accident and its aftermath tell the reader that the “you” really means the driver of the car, avoiding the “I” to cultivate sympathy, to suggest parallel experience, or simply to avoid accountability. Here, Atwood also recounts intimate detail suggesting this “you” replaces the speaker’s “I” in moments like “You took a large scoop of vanilla ice-cream / and filled up the glass with grape juice” (Lines 9-10). Both poems derive some irony from portraying an isolated figure speaking in second person, as if the only other person in their worlds lives in the mirror.

“Self-Portrait Astride a Zamboni“ by Sally Dawidoff (2011)

This is another poem featuring youthful bad decisions, alcohol and driving, and transgression for the sake of effect.