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Theme: Father Poetry

Author: Ashley T. Drye
Published on: Jan 15, 2004



To continue our series of themes in poetry, I have chosen fathers as a topic. There are different aspects to fathers, I will range from abusive and hateful father poems to wonderful and perfect father poems. Fathers play a large role in our lives, because they are usually the people who 'program' you throughout your childhood. Just like when you are talking to someone and you think, "That is something my father would have said!" For some of us, the thought of repeating something said by our fathers, would frighten us, and for others it would excite us. It really depends on the environment you were brought up in. Even the lack of father, can bring around a great deal of change in your life. To start, I have decided to use one of my own poems as an example.



To You, Daddy

You, daddy, were the tempteous spider
which weaved its tangled web,
in my home, in my house, in my family,
but, you daddy, you never stuck, did you?
You had magic bristles on your legs,
which allowed you to move freely
without reciprocation.

You stared at me with those eight eyes,
and you knew that only two stared back.
Did any of my vibrations reach you, daddy?
Did I get through to you?
It seemed like I moved so much,
but you could not feel me, daddy.

You live in that hole of sin and filth,
and you could not see with those eyes,
everything was hazy to you, wasn't it, daddy?
With your new life, even if it was in the dark,
you were satisfied, daddy, weren't you?

Like your prey, I was sucked in,
feeling each claw, each bite, daddy,
I felt your hunger and need.
You wanted my condolences, daddy?
While your carnivorous legs
were wrapped around me so tight?
Where could I go, daddy?
Where could I go?

You spun your web around me,
and as that liquid began to harden,
I grew bristles of my own, daddy,
and I walked right out of your snare,
and as you watched me leave,
you looked down and noticed - daddy,
that now, you were caught in your own web.




This poem, was important to me, because I had feelings which I felt towards my father, that I had a hard time expressing. I was feeling down and depressed about my life, and could not put these feelings into words until I related my father to a spider. The next poem, is by Nick Zegarac.

Father

Into the cheery abyss
of childhood days
we burst into his arms
'What did you bring us?'
Unconditional love, pride
and devotion to our every whim
No conscious weight applied

Years later,
Summation of his worth
Dwindled into a few hush pauses
The prerequisite of tears
an appreciation distilled
into tangible remorse
and the inevitable,
'What did you leave us?'

When I read this poem, I felt very sorry for the father of these children. He gives them unconditional love and they just expect material items from him. That father, would be greatly appreciated by many people out there. As for the next poem, I don't think I could of covered this topic, without putting a little Sylvia Plath in it. Her famous "Daddy" poem just is probably, one of my most favorite poems ever.

Daddy
By:Sylvia Plath

You do not do, you do not do
Any more, black shoe
In which I have lived like a foot
For thirty years, poor and white,
Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.

Daddy, I have had to kill you.
You died before I had time---
Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,
Ghastly statue with one grey toe
Big as a Frisco seal

And a head in the freakish Atlantic
Where it pours bean green over blue
In the waters off beautiful Nauset.
I used to pray to recover you.
Ach, du.

In the German tongue, in the Polish town
Scraped flat by the roller
Of wars, wars, wars.
But the name of the town is common.
My Polack friend

Says there are a dozen or two.
So I never could tell where you
Put your foot, your root,
I never could talk to you.
The tongue stuck in my jaw.

It stuck in a barb wire snare.
Ich, ich, ich, ich,

I could hardly speak.
I thought every German was you.
And the language obscene

An engine, an engine
Chuffing me off like a Jew.
A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.
I began to talk like a Jew.
I think I may well be a Jew.

The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna
Are not very pure or true.
With my gypsy ancestress and my weird luck
And my Tarot pack and my Tarot pack
I may be a bit of a Jew.

I have always been scared of you,
With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.
And your neat mustache
And your Aryan eye, bright blue.
Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You---

Not God but a swastika
So black no sky could squeak through.
Every woman adores a Fascist,
The boot in the face, the brute Brute
heart of a brute like you.

You stand at the blackboard, daddy,
In the picture I have of you,
A cleft in your chin instead of your foot
But no less a devil for that, no not
Any less the black man who

Bit my pretty red heart in two.
I was ten when they buried you.
At twenty I tried to die
And get back, back, back to you.
I thought even the bones would do.

But they pulled me out of the sack,
And they stuck me together with glue.
And then I knew what to do.
I made a model of you,
A man in black with a Meinkampf look

And a love of the rack and the screw.
And I said I do, I do.
So daddy, I'm finally through.
The black telephone's off at the root,
The voices just can't worm through.

If I've killed one man, I've killed two---
The vampire who said he was you and drank my blood for a year,
Seven years, if you want to know.
Daddy, you can lie back now.

There's a stake in your fat, black heart
And the villagers never liked you.
They are dancing and stamping on you.
They always knew it was you.
Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.



I don't know how someone can read this poem, and not just sit there silent. Such emotion! Relating her dad to a Nazi and her being the Jew! He is the shoe, and she is the foot! Wow, I must say, I could spend a whole article, breaking down each line and showing you all exactly what she means and how great it is that she uses personification and her great diction choices, but I think you can get the same effect, by just reading it.

Well, that is the end of this theme, stick around to see the next!

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