POEM AT THIRTY-NINE

How I miss my father.

I wish he had not been
so tired
when I was
born

Writing deposit slips and checks

I think of him.
He taught me how. * diction establishing her father as her educator
This is the form, and mentor
he must have said: * double entendre (an actual paper form
the way it is done. and form meaning ‘the order of things’
I learned to see
bits of paper
as a way
to escape
the life he knew
and even in high school
had a savings
account.

He taught me
that telling the truth
did not always mean
a beating;
though many of my truths
must have grieved him * melancholic undertones
before the end.

How I miss my father!

He cooked like a person * simile
dancing * the repeated use of the
in a yoga meditation present participle makes
and craved the voluptuous her memories vivid
sharing
of good food.

Now I look and cook just like him:

my brain light;
tossing this and that
into the pot;
seasoning none of my life
the same way twice; happy to feed
whoever strays my way.

He would have grown

to admire
the women I've become:
cooking, writing, chopping wood,
staring into the fire.
Historical Context of this autobiographical poem:
Alice Walker wrote the poem at a dramatic point in her life,
shortly after the controversial reception of her novel, The Color
Purple, which heavily criticised patriarchal black society.
Perhaps this is Walker’s reflection on her father as one of the
‘black patriarchs’ most dominant in her own life, and how he
would have felt about her book. She implicitly refers to the
criticisms of the novel where she writes ‘many of my truths
must have grieved him before the end.’

Voice
The poem is a first person narrative. It reads as the speaker’s
‘train of thought’ or ‘stream of consciousness’ which reveals
her innermost thoughts.

Tone
The tone is one of sadness, regret, nostalgia “I miss...I wish” it
is also celebratory, proud.

Themes

(i)Love (parent/child);
(ii)growing up; nostalgia;
(iii)learning life lessons (compare and contrast Rudyard Kipling’s
“If”; poverty/hardship; death and loss )

Form and structure

Free verse, which is in keeping with the conversational nature

of the poem, fluctuating from one memory to another.
Frequent enjambment where the memories flow freely (an
example of this is to be found in the 4th stanza); other thoughts
are more interrupted by punctuation as can be seen in the 2nd
stanza “He taught me how. / This is the form, / he must have
said:”

The poem moves from her birth in the first stanza to the
present (at 39) in final.
The poem is structured around the refrain “How I miss my
father”; the tenor of this refrain on its second occurrence is
more intense; this augmentation of emotion is conveyed by the
inclusion of an exclamation mark. Her grief is shown by
the repetition of that simple statement “How I miss my father”
with the addition of the exclamation the second time. These
lines stand alone, which gives them more poignance.

Language
At start, the lexis is extremely simple, in the first stanza it is
almost monosyllabic, expressing simple regret.

The second stanza also uses straightforward language “This is

the form”, possibly because it is dealing with practicalities;
the semantic field here is of business and money: “deposit slips
and cheques” “bits of paper”, “savings account”. Despite being
busy and tired, he had time to teach his daughter.

The repetition of the phrase “He taught me” reinforces how

the father as an educator and mentor is a pivotal theme of the
poem; the second half of the poem reveals the results of such
teaching.

The third stanza refers to “beatings” which introduces a dark

and sinister tone; the implication is that her father taught her
to be brave in the telling of the truth and to not allow the
threat of harsh repercussions (“beatings”) to steer her away
from the path of the truth. The focus then turns to the hurt that
may have been caused to her father by her following his advice
of telling this truth. The nature of what may have caused him
hurt is not elaborated upon ; however the tenor of this stanza is
one of pain and melancholy.

The language becomes more poetic, figurative and uplifting in

the second half, where the father’s creative qualities are
celebrated as well as his generosity. There is a clear sense of
character here, of someone who possessed a ‘joie de vivre’ and
this transfers to the poet in the next stanza, with equally
lively present participles “tossing”, “seasoning”. She has
inherited his creative flair and his generosity “happy to feed.”
There is a contrast between the state of mind that the speaker
has achieved “at thirty nine” and that of her father; she
describes how her “brain “ is “light” whereas her earliest
memories of her father are of him being “so tired”. The
implication is that with his careful guidance and teaching her
father enabled her “to escape the life he knew”.