Commentary on Reindeer and Engine.

In addition to that, the writer had used enjambment to slow down the pace of the poem. The free verse leaps down the page with many graphical representation of the movement such as “look back” and “or swerve/into the black deep good dark of the forest”. The imagery had given us a clear picture of what is going on in the scene and could give us a stronger understanding as we could picture it in our mind. While the rhyme, “eye”, “die”, ”tries”, “track”, “back”, helps the impossibility of escaping on time.

“Snowy crows and owlly” gives us a sense of black and white color. The lack of use of color shows the reader that the reindeer can only run in one direction, running away from the train, if not its life will perish. And word such as “glare”, “blast”, “deep”, “whitehot splinter”, “lockt” and “roaring” are all associated with violence and destruction. The writer has used many destructive words throughout the poem to show how bad the situation is at.

The sanctuary of the forest, which has a broad vowel sound, protects the reindeer as it can flee towards that direction. But technology, which evolves violence, destroys the nature.  Therefore the reindeer has to escape from the technology and battle for survival between nature and technology. This could be seen through the line “runs runs runs runs runs”, the repetition of runs shows that the train is moving at a high speed and the reindeer could only go in one direction, reinforce through the repetition conveys the mental response on the reindeer.  

In the last stanza, the writer suddenly used hyphenated words like “ wide-as-the-moon” and “deep-as-the-dark” slows down the pace of the poem which gives us a sense that the life will end if the reindeer still couldn’t escape from the track.  The word “lockt” which is supposed to be written as  “locked” is corrupted. It is essentially underscores and highlight how difficult for the reindeer to run away and the fact the reindeer does not have the rational ways to think or to act anymore. Lastly, with one word in one line, “wheels / night”, shows that the wheel from the engine had already arrived and rolled over the innocence reindeer. The significant of using one word in each line before it end shows the last breath of the reindeer and destruction happens on the innocence deer.

I conclude that “Reindeer and Engine” have a strong faith on one another, especially the reindeer having such a great sense of escaping but unfortunately the technology destroys the nature that leads to death.