Poem at Thirty-Nine

Question 1

Form

Answer 1

• Free verse
• Makes it seem like a free and uncontrolled flow of memory
• Highlights how irregular and fluctuating her emotional state is when recalling these memories
• The unequal stanzaic structure shows the differing emotions she feels regarding different aspects of her father e.g. the good, the mundane, the bad

This means there is no set rhyme scheme, meter or stanzaic structure

Question 2

Main themes

Answer 2

• Memory
• Loss
• Love
• Childhood
• Regret

Question 3

Many personal pronouns: e.g. ‘I’ and ‘he’

Answer 3

Makes the memories personal and nostalgic for her

Question 4

Lots of enjambment

Answer 4

Creates a sense of the memory being out of control though happy

Question 5

Large and frequent variation in line length

Answer 5

• Shows her tumultuous experience in recalling these memories
• Somtimes she feels grief, other times joy

Question 6

Title

Answer 6

• Suggests she is an adult
• This shows that she is recalling memories of her childhood with nostalgia
• It also shows the sporadic nature of this recollection and how it happened at a random time, highlighting how it is out of her control

Question 7

‘How I miss my father’

Answer 7

• Anaphora (later in the poem)
• The repetition highlights the nostalgia she feels regarding her memories of him

Question 8

‘I wish he had not been so tired’

Answer 8

This reflection shows he was working hard for her

Question 9

‘when I was born’

Answer 9

• ‘born’ is a temporal marker and is end-stopped and focused
• This creates a more serious tone and shows that he has been caring for her for a very long time

Question 10

‘deposit slips’, ‘checks’ and ‘bits of paper’

Answer 10

• Mundane, monetary items
• Shows the pragmatic advice her father gave, showing he truly cares for her

Question 11

‘I think of him’

Answer 11

Shows how his advice and character truly had an impact on her as she thinks of him when doing things related to finances

Question 12

‘I learned to see bits of paper as a way to escape the life he knew’

Answer 12

• Shows the adversity he faced but how he is trying to ensure she never has to face it through a metaphorical ‘escape’
• Solidifies her respect and love for him, and how his advice was truly useful and she followed it

Question 13

‘and even in high school had a savings account’

Answer 13

Proves that she did in heed the advice of her father, showing her respect for him

Question 14

‘he taught me that telling the truth’

Answer 14

• Alliteration
• Shows the importance of the advice her father gave her in this regard

Question 15

‘did not always mean a beating’

Answer 15

• A beating could be a metaphor for the conseuqnces in life
• Shows how he was stressing the importance of honesty but also being honest himself by saying some consequences are inevitable

You could read that he himself was authoratarian and beat her, showing he had two sides to his character

Question 16

‘though many of my truths must have grieved him before the end’

Answer 16

• Personification of ‘truths’
• Shows how she regrets causing him pain, highlighting her love for him
• ‘Before the end’ is a euphemism showing her grief and difficulty in dealing with his death

Question 17

‘How I miss my father!’

Answer 17

• Anaphora, but with an exclamation mark
• This highlights her increasing emotion as more memories of her father come out
• However, it also indicates a volta from a more mundane and then serious tone of the last two stanzas to a happier and more passionate one

Question 18

‘He cooked like a person dancing in a yoga meditation’

Answer 18

• Simile
• Comparison to dancing how natural cooking came to him and how he was happy doing it
• Cooking and food may be symbolic of his conviviality, friendliness and general good will which Walker loves and respects him for having

Question 19

‘and craved the voluptuous sharing of good food’

Answer 19

• Tones of sensual pleasure, but also his love (‘craving’) for charity
• Highlights his magnanimity and how he lived to gratify others which she loves and respects him for doing

Question 20

‘Now I look and cook just like him’

Answer 20

• Assonance
• Highlights the similarity between what he was like and what she has become

Question 21

‘my brain light; tossing this and that into the pot;’

Answer 21

• The metaphor of her brain being light shows how happy she is doing this
• The lack of specificity in the words ‘tossing this and that’ shows how he is doing it for the sake of doing it because she is happy doing it
• This means that she is copying her fathers actions because she loved the person he was so she wishes to become somebody similar

Question 22

‘seasoning none of my life the same way twice;’

Answer 22

• Metaphor
• Shows the variety she enjoys in her life now because he recognises how many good things there are in life (maybe due to her father)
• This shows she has ‘escaped the life her father knew’, mostly thanks to his advice

Question 23

‘happy to feed whoever strays my way’

Answer 23

• Metaphor for her being happy to help anyone
• This shows how she is now analogous to her father meaning she respected him when he was alive and is now striving to be like him

Question 24

‘He would have grown to admire the woman I’ve become:’

Answer 24

• Confirms the fact that she has become similar to him or has followed his advice
• This means she misses him and respected the person he was as she is now striving to become like him

Question 25

‘cooking, writing, chopping wood, staring into the fire.’

Answer 25

• Asyndetic list
• It gives examples of all the things she is doing to be similar to her father or that would please him
• The asyndetic list makes it seem endless, showing the extent of how she is striving to be like him