Occasional Poems: Father's Day

The day we honor fathers rapidly approaches.  And poems for fathers seem easy until we sit down to write.

Unlike for Father's Day, poems for Mother’s Day flood the world.  We write line after line of overblown sentiments better suited for greeting cards.  We design them to tug at the heart or evoke loud guffaws.

Avoiding those two pitfalls are the reason that Mother’s Day poems are difficult to write.  We want them to be real, to be personal, and to be touching.

We have the same trouble with Father's Day poems.

And we stumble against another barrier:  We don’t think “sentiment” when we consider writing for fathers.  We should.

Yet tossing in emotion after emotion doesn’t work for either.  Both genders deserve  truth instead of watery pathos.

Reminder

We have three chief reasons to practice our poetic craft with occasional poems for all**:

1] keep to audience requirements.  Who are we writing for?  Ourselves?  Nyah.  It's the fathers we wish to honor.

2] keep to the 4 Requirements of Song:  Powerful Lines.  Strong Imagery.  Heart-felt Message.  Clear Communication. 

3] keep a focus on structure to stand out from the multitude of other poems.

(**Occasional Poems for All.  That's a book, isn't it?  Filled with all the trite, complacent pathos we could want.  Let’s not fall back on this or on greeting cards.)

3 + 1

For the occasion of Father’s Day, I want to celebrate 3 + 1 poems that present the father in his role as protector.

(And that’s the poetic starting point:  What role of the father will we celebrate?  What does that role require?  What are specific images that represent that role?  Is there a dominant image that we can turn into an active metaphor?)

ROBERT HAYDEN: FATHERS AS PROTECTORS

Hayden gives us the sadness of missed opportunities to express to his father appreciation for his sacrifices, sacrifices that were unknown and unrecognized by arrogant and selfish youth.

JAN BEATTY: FATHERS GIVE OUR FUTURES

Beatty is all harsh reality, the father’s typical answer to a question when he’s answered it before and is now out of patience.  We laugh—and then we nod, realizing the truth the father gives us.

My Father Teaches Me to Dream

You want to know what work is? 
I'll tell you what work is: 
Work is work. 
You get up. You get on the bus.
You don't look from side to side. 
You keep your eyes straight ahead. 
That way nobody bothers you—see? 
You get off the bus. You work all day.
You get back on the bus at night. Same thing.
You go to sleep. You get up.
You do the same thing again. 
Nothing more. Nothing less. 
There's no handouts in this life. 
All this other stuff you're looking for— 
it ain't there. 
Work is work.

Look again at Beatty’s title.  In giving the title, unspoken is the father’s wish and the child’s realization of how to escape such toil and pursue the career that will create happiness in the slavery of work for $$$.  The gift of the future dream is the greatest gift our fathers give to us.

CECIL DAY LEWIS: FATHERS LET GO OF THE PAST

Father’s Day poems usually provides the child’s perspective.  C. Day Lewis’ “Walking Away” provides us the father’s perspective.

Walking Away

It is eighteen years ago, almost to the day –
A sunny day with leaves just turning,
The touch-lines new-ruled – since I watched you play
Your first game of football, then, like a satellite
Wrenched from its orbit, go drifting away

Behind a scatter of boys. I can see
You walking away from me towards the school
With the pathos of a half-fledged thing set free
Into a wilderness, the gait of one
Who finds no path where the path should be.

That hesitant figure, eddying away
Like a winged seed loosened from its parent stem,
Has something I never quite grasp to convey
About nature’s give-and-take – the small, the scorching
Ordeals which fire one’s irresolute clay.

I have had worse partings, but none that so
Gnaws at my mind still. Perhaps it is roughly
Saying what God alone could perfectly show –
How selfhood begins with a walking away,
And love is proved in the letting go.

Plus 1:   The Lessons of Fathers Stay With Us

Here is the extra poem, Li-Young Lee’s “The Gift”.  In helping his beloved wife, Lee is reminded of his beloved father and a practical lesson.  Here he writes an eternal Father's Day poem without making that his obvious purpose.

The greatest gifts for his son are not tangible presents but the intangibles that we carry into the future.

The Gift

To pull the metal splinter from my palm

my father recited a story in a low voice.

I watched his lovely face and not the blade.

Before the story ended, he’d removed

the iron sliver I thought I’d die from.

I can’t remember the tale,

but hear his voice still, a well

of dark water, a prayer.

And I recall his hands,

two measures of tenderness

he laid against my face,

the flames of discipline

he raised above my head.

Had you entered that afternoon

you would have thought you saw a man

planting something in a boy’s palm,

a silver tear, a tiny flame.

Had you followed that boy

you would have arrived here,

where I bend over my wife’s right hand.

Look how I shave her thumbnail down

so carefully she feels no pain.

Watch as I lift the splinter out.

I was seven when my father

took my hand like this,

and I did not hold that shard

between my fingers and think,

Metal that will bury me,

christen it Little Assassin,

Ore Going Deep for My Heart.

And I did not lift up my wound and cry,

Death visited here!

I did what a child does

when he’s given something to keep.

I kissed my father.

Next Up ::  Our Last Occasional Poetry Blog :: Independence Day