Writing Reflections: Cat and Mouse

Well, everyone, another week has gone by, and it is time for the second installment in my new series, “Writing Reflections”. This time, I’m going to take you to a piece that is a little closer in time, just about 24 days back. Yes, in this “Writing Reflections”, we’re going to be visiting my entry into the Don’t Turn Around Challenge, “Cat and Mouse”.

Unfortunately, “Cat and Mouse” did not win the challenge. It did not even place as Runner-up or Honor Mention. For this “Writing Reflections”, I will be exploring why I think that might have happened.

First, though, let’s go to the poem itself. I’m leaving a link to the original poem, but I am also including the text here.

I can feel it watching me across the vast savannah

Its diamond pupils never leave me

Through the towering grass

Watching my every move as I hover over my hard-earned meal

It envies me and my treasure

Wanting me dead—or worse

I raise my head and sniff once, twice, three times

It is still there

I can feel it in my whiskers

It sends a chill down through my tail

But where to run?

Surely it will follow me home…

***

I feel it come closer

Hear its feet crunch on the leaves

It is still watching me

Those diamond eyes that everyone finds so fascinating

I must run!

***

I scoop up my precious crumbs and dash through the grass

The diamond eyes follow me each way that I turn

I cannot shake the feeling of being followed

Yet when I turn, I see nothing there

Nothing, but I know it must be right behind me

This menace of the savannah

Its diamond eyes searching for me as I dart

This way and that

Trying to lose it

Forever failing

Forever in its line of vision

***

Then finally

Finally…

I see the hole that is my home

And I duck inside

Just before a furry paw swipes at the entrance

Narrowly missing where I had been

***

But I am safe inside my hole

No diamond eyes can reach me here

Stephanie Hoogstad, "Cat and Mouse"

This poem was posted before Vocal introduced the new editor, so I had to use “…” to ensure that the stanzas were separated. I have kept them here because they are part of the original poem, although they feel rather superfluous now. Perhaps including them was to the detriment of the poem in regards to the challenge, perhaps not, but I doubt that it was enough to knock the poem out of the running entirely.

So, I turn now to the challenge itself. Here is the prompt, word for word:

Write a poem about the feeling that something is behind you.

You sense it before you see it. This challenge builds on anticipation and the fear of what stays just out of view.

Stay with that feeling of being followed or watched. The presence may never fully appear, but it should shape the poem’s movement and tone.

Think about how the tension sticks even when nothing is proven. What’s left unseen can feel just as strong as anything you show.

Vocal, Don't Turn Around Challenge

When I decided to enter the challenge, I did not want to do something typical. I wanted to do stand out. So, I thought, what could I do that felt like something is behind “you” (the subject of the poem) that was not the typical stalker? Everyone would center their poem on a literal human stalker/hunter or an emotional/esoteric stalker/hunter. I wanted something unique. Then I thought: well, what about a primitive hunter? An animalistic hunter? From there, it just popped into my head fully formed: a mouse being stalked by a cat. It seemed to be just what I needed for this challenge.

So, what went wrong?

In truth, when I saw that I did not even get an Honorable Mention, I was incredibly disappointed. I thought for sure that I had something worth placing. After giving it some thought, though, I can see why it might not have won anything.

I look at the last line of the prompt in particular two lines of the prompt in particular: “Think about how the tension sticks even when nothing is proven. What’s left unseen can feel just as strong as anything you show.”

I did have the cat unseen for the majority of the poem. This built up tension as the mouse ran into his hole. However, the cat is eventually seen, even if it is just his paw, which ruins the tension that I had spent the entire poem building up. If I had not done the near-miss with the cat’s paw, perhaps I would have had a better chance of placing.

If I were to rewrite it, I would combine the final two stanzas thusly:

Then finally

Finally…

I see the hole that is my home

And I duck inside

Safe inside my hole

No diamond eyes can reach me here

Yes, perhaps that would have been an award-winning ending. But hindsight is 20/20, as they say.

What about you, my readers? For those of you who entered the Don’t Turn Around Challenge and did not place, why do you think that happened? And if you did place, why do you think that happened as well? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!