10. Poem at Thirty-Nine Flashcards
Mneumonic:
Can Poetry Sometimes Seem Fairly Tolerable (Alright; OK)?
STAR
When you write your plan in the exam immediately write out your mneumonic to get your subheadings
Can = Context
Poetry = Poet’s Perspective
Sometimes = Summary
Seem = Structure
Fairly = Form
Tolerable = Title
(Alright; = Analysis
STAR = Special words Technique Atmosphere Rhyme
OK) = Opinion
Poem at Thirty-Nine - Alice Walker
Poem at Thirty-Nine - Alice Walker
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.
This is the form,
he must have said:
the way it is done.
I learned to see
bits of paper
as a way
to escape
the life he knew
and even in high school
hada savings
account.
He taught me
that telling the truth
did not always mean
a beating;
though many of my truths
must have grieved him
before the end.
How I miss my father!
Hecooked like a person
dancing
in a yoga meditation
and craved the voluptuous
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 woman I’ve become:
cooking, writing, chopping wood,
staring into the fire.
What is the Background and context of the poem
(background and biography)
Alice Walker’s Biography:
- African-American writer
- She was born in 1944
- To a poor family in Georgia. Mother was a maid, her father worked on a farm.
- Mother believed education could free you and encouraged them.
- Alice won a scholarship to uni
- Her father died when she was 31
- Won a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1983 (when she was 39) for her very famous book The Colour Purple. When of course she also wrote Poem at Thirty-Nine
- The Colour Purple was made into a very successful film
- She was linked to the civil right movement in the US, with its leader Martin Luther King. She campaigned for equal voting, welfare and education rights in Mississippi
- She married a Jewish Civil Rights lawyer. They became the first legally married inter-racial couple in the state. They were threatened by the Ku Klux Klan and experienced great prejudice, but they remained in the state working to gain right for other black and Jewish people
Background to the poem:
Walker’s father died in 1974. What is sad is that he didn’t live to see her huge success in 1982 with The Colour Purple. It was a best-selling, critically acclaimed novel. It describes the difficult lives of black women in the 1930s in Georgia. Where they were oppressed by white laws and racism and also black patriarchy (men having unfair power over women).
Poet’s Perspective
- Written in the first person.
- Use of the possessive pronoun ‘my’ shows that this is about the poet’s own father, not someone else’s. This poem is a deeply personal expression of grief.
- It’s biographical in the sense that it is about Walker’s memories of her dead father, working from birth through to present day. It includes details of her life, such as how difficult it was to make ends meet.
- It is written at the age of thirty-nine, after her father’s death, and after the huge success of Walker’s novel “The Colour Purple”, so can be seen as a pivotal point of self-reflection and realisation.
SUMMARY
- Poem describes how much Walker misses her dead father
- It describes a series of memories of him, working from her birth through to the present day.
- She explains all the wonderful things he taught her her about life
- She concludes that although he may not have agreed with all her opinions, he would be proud of her at this point in her life - 39
FORM and STRUCTURE
(how many stanzas; how its all put together etc.)
STRUCTURE and FORM
FORM
- Written in FREE-VERSE
- No fixed rhythm or rhyme scheme
- The short lines create a staccato * effect - this suggests that the poet is emotional and determined to deal with the subject
Structured in
- 7 irregular stanzas
- It is structured around a refrain * How I miss my father’. The repetition of this phrase ‘separates the poem into two distinct sections -the first section = stanzas 1 to 4; the second section = 5 to 7
- The second time it is mentioned, it has an exclamation mark, suggesting that the poet is becoming more emotional
- Walker frequently uses enjambment *to isolate and emphasise words and phrases
- She uses long sentences that run across several short lines, to communicate how memory is fragmented [in bits] and yet flowing
* Staccato = each sound or note sharply separated from the next
* Enjambment (in verse) = the continuation of a sentence without a pause beyond the end of a line, couplet or stanza
* Refrain = a type of repetition, where usually a line, a phrase is repeated
TITLE
TITLE
- it’s very precise. It tells the reader that this was written when the poet was thirty-nine.
- It implies that there was some sort of big realisation (an epiphany) at this age - just after the success of her novel, “The Colour Purple”.
- Age 39 is often associated with the end of age and the beginning of middle age
- Maybe this is a pivotal moment for Walker when she is able to make peace with the memory of her father.
ANALYSIS 1. Atmosphere
[STAR = Special words, technique, atmosphere, rhyme]
ATMOSPHERE / MOOD
- The poem begins with a plaintive tone, expressing regret at how hard her father had to work. It is almost an outpouring of the emotion of bereavement and loss.
- It focuses on regret of aspects of their relationship
- The tone is colloquial * as though she is confiding in us about her grief.
- The second repetition of “How I miss my father!” marks a shift in tone to the second section of the poem, which explores more positive memories and similarities between the poet and her father.
- While the poem begins full of sadness and loss, it ends with a realisation of the poet’s own worth which she believes her father would have admired.
Colloquial = informal, ordinary language
ANALYSIS 2. Special words and techniques
Stanza 1
[STAR = Special words, technique, atmosphere, rhyme]
STANZA 1:
“How I miss my father.<br></br>I wish he had not been<br></br>so tired<br></br>when I was<br></br>born.”
- The first line in one short sentence sums up the content and tone of the rest of the poem: grief and loss of her father.
- Begins with a refrain* (“How I miss my father”) which is later repeated, and splits the poem into two sections
- The word ‘How’ implies that her grief is great and endless.
- The possessive pronoun “my’ adds to the sense that this is very personal. It is the poet’s own father, no one else’s
- The verb ‘wish’ suggests that there are things she wants to change. She has regrets about her relationship with her father
- “So tired’ suggests the exhaustion that her father felt, which links to biographical details of her life: Walker’s father was a farmer and they were poor. He would have had to work long hours to make ends meet.
- “When I was / born’. Her father, it seems right from when she was a baby had no time to be with her. She regrets this. She wishes it wasn’t so.
ANALYSIS 3: Special words and techniques Stanza 2.
[STAR = Special words, technique, atmosphere, rhyme]
STANZA 2:
Writing deposit slips and checks
I think of him.
He taught me how.
This is the form,
he must have said:
the way it is done.
- This stanza moves on to the reasons for her father’s tiredness. It is dominated by descriptions of money, showing how big a focus this was when she was a child. This implies that they didn’t have much.
- “Writing deposit slips and checks / I think of him” - she is prompted to think of her father when writing deposit slips to pay money in to the bank, or signing cheques to withdraw money to pay bills.
- It might seem surprising that it is this ordinary, and business like task that prompts the memories of her father. It might not seem very intimate, but it’s indicative of how central money and learning about money was to her life as a child. Her father was preoccupied with work and financial concerns.
- “He taught me how. / This is the form, / he must have said: / the way it is done.” This explains how taught her how to write bank forms, but the words “he must have said” are vague. Her memory needs to be reconstructed, implying perhaps her young age, the insufficiency of real life memories or perhaps that she can’t remember a time when it wasn’t this way.
- “the way it is done’ is very precise and definite. Her father was perhaps very authoritative with her.
ANALYSIS: Special words and techniques
Stanza 3
[STAR = Special words, technique, atmosphere, rhyme]
STANZA 3
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.
- The words ‘bits of paper’ at first confuse us. Given that we know Walker goes on to become a writer, the bits of paper could be her escape through writing, but then we go on to learn that she is really talking about financial security. The ‘bits of paper’ are money.
- Her father’s emphasis on money taught her to see this as the only escape from the prison of poverty. Money is the way to find freedom.
- The poet writes that even as a young teenager (“even in high school”) she “had a savings / account.” At this young age she was already making plans to escape from her father’s fate.
ANALYSIS: Special words and techniques
Stanza 4
Stanza 4
He taught me
that telling the truth<br></br>did not always mean<br></br>a beating;<br></br>though many of my truths<br></br>must have grieved him<br></br>before the end.
- “He taught me / that telling the truth / did not always mean / a beating;” As well as the practical skills of saving money, the poem shows that he taught her principles, such as being honest.
- At first sight, this suggests that if Walker was honest about a mistake then her father would not harshly punish her. It is a double-edged description though. The word ‘beating’ is shocking - it implies a violent response.
- Walker may be hinting here at a wider theme in “The Colour Purple” of the abusive lives of poor black Americans and the treatment of females.
- Alternatively these words could have political connotations. Speaking out might not always lead to a beating at the hands of the police and authorities. Walker went on to be involved in civil rights campaigning. Perhaps her lessons from her father informed her beliefs in political defiance.
- “Though many of my truths / must have grieved him / before the end.” Walker imagines her father feeling a sense of sorrow at the way she lived her life and what was important for her. Perhaps her father felt that he had lost her to a lifestyle that he couldn’t approve of.
- It is ironic that while her father taught her to be honest, her honesty was a source of sadness for him. Her political activism, and perhaps being part of a mixed raced couple, would have been shocking to many Americans in those days.
- Also her novel describes violent and abusive black men. Walker is coming to terms with the fact that her father taught her well, but the way she expressed this might have hurt him. She seems to regret this.
ANALYSIS: Special words and techniques
Stanza 5
How I miss my father!<br></br>He cooked like a person<br></br>dancing<br></br>in a yoga meditation<br></br>and craved the voluptuous<br></br>sharing<br></br>of good food.
- After the honesty of the last stanza and Walker’s regrets at hurting her father, it is understandable that the next line begins with a repetition of the opening line “How I miss my father!’ She is perhaps overwhelmed with grief and the desire to reconcile with him.
- In the second repetition the phrase is punctuated with an exclamation point, giving a stronger sense that she really misses him, and showing her strong emotion.
- The repetition also marks a tonal shift and the beginning of the second section, which explores more positive memories and similarities between the poet and her father.
- Walker enjoys another memory: her father cooking. “He cooked like a person / dancing / in a yoga meditation” she writes. This joyful simile is unusual. A household task or chore has the enjoyment and physical abandonment of dancing for her father.
- The words “yoga mediation’ are also notable: people in yoga meditations are often completely still. The juxtaposition of dancing and still contemplation is effective in depicting the joy and the calm of cooking for her father.
- She goes on to explain why it is so important to him. He ‘craved the voluptuous sharing of good food”. The word ‘craved’ is significant here. It is desired to the point of addiction. Her father passionately needed to share food with others, perhaps friends and family. The word voluptuous means luxurious and pleasure loving. This is in direct contrast with the careful way he deals with money.
ANALYSIS: Special words and techniques
Stanza 6
Stanza 6
Now I look and cook just like him:<br></br>my brain light;<br></br>tossing this and that<br></br>into the pot;<br></br>seasoning none of my life<br></br>the same way twice; happy to feed<br></br>whoever strays my way.
- This penultimate stanza begins with the word “Now’. It brings the reader back to the present day rather than the past. It shows the influence that her father has had on her.
- The lovely rhyme in the words “I look and cook just like him’ firmly establishes their similarities.
- When she cooks, like her father she gain enjoyment - her brain is ‘light’. She has a connection with him through cooking. Given how important cooking was to him, she has the best of him in her.
- She extends the description of cooking to a metaphor. She compares the way she cooks to the way she lives her life. Like an adventurous cook who adds the seasoning in a creative and experimental way to the dish, she lives her life in an adaptable and exciting way (“seasoning none of my life/ the same way twice”), with spice and novelty.
- The stanza concludes with the words “happy to feed / whoever strays my way.” The verb to stray suggest someone homeless who wanders in. So Walker, like her father before her, extends her friendliness and generosity to include those who want to join her table.
ANALYSIS: Special words and techniques
Stanza 7
Stanza 7
He would have grown<br></br>to admire<br></br>the woman I’ve become:<br></br>cooking, writing, chopping wood,<br></br>staring into the fire.
- This final stanza shows that Walker has moved beyond the terrible grief and bereavement that the poem began with. She has now convinced herself that although she lived very differently to her father, she is still like him.
- She asserts her belief that while her father would not have immediately liked her actions, he would have ‘grown’ to appreciate and be proud of her.
- The final description is about Walker, not her father. She sums herself up as someone who is “cooking, writing, chopping wood, staring into the fire.” These activities begin with cooking and writing, which we know about. “Chopping wood’ shows us also that she is physically and spiritually strong. She is self-sufficient: she chops the wood for her own fire, and she is able to stare at it in contemplation because she is also a woman of great ideas.
- Therefore while the poem begins full of sadness and loss, it ends with a realisations of the poet’s own worth which she believes her father would have admired.
