MICHAEL ONTAADJE'S TO A SAD DAUGHTER
AUTHOR INTRODUCTION
NAME : Michael Ontaadje
BORN : 12.09.1943
NATIONALITY : Canadian-Srilankan
OCCUPATION : Author, Poet
WORKS :The English patient,
Running in the family
TEXT OF THE POEM:
To A Sad Daughter
All night long the hockey pictures
gaze down at you
sleeping in your tracksuit.
Belligerent goalies are your ideal.
Threats of being traded
cuts and wounds
- all this pleases you.
0 my god! you say at breakfast
reading the sports page over the Alpen
as another player breaks his ankle
or assaults the coach.
When I thought of daughters
I wasn't expecting this
but I like this more.
I like all your faults
even your purple moods
when you retreat from everyone
to sit in bed under a quilt.
And when I say 'like'
I mean of course 'love'
but that embarrasses you.
You who feel superior to black and white movies
(coaxed for hours to see Casablanca)
though you were moved
by Creature from the Black Lagoon.
One day I'll come swimming
beside your ship or someone will
and if you hear the siren
listen to it. For if you close your ears
only nothing happens. You will never change.
I don't care if you risk
your life to angry goalies
creatures with webbed feet.
You can enter their caves and castles
their glass laboratories. Just
don't be fooled by anyone but yourself.
This is the first lecture I've given you.
You're 'sweet sixteen' you said.
I'd rather be your closest friend
than your father. I'm not good at advice
you know that, but ride
the ceremonies
until they grow dark.
Sometimes you are so busy
discovering your friends
I ache with a loss
— but that is greed.
And sometimes I've gone
into my purple world
and lost you.
One afternoon I stepped
into your room. You were sitting
at the desk where I now write this.
Forsythia outside the window
and sun spilled over you
like a thick yellow miracle
as if another planet
was coaxing you out of the house
— all those possible worlds! -
and you, meanwhile, busy with mathematics.
I cannot look at forsythia now
without loss, or joy for you.
You step delicately
into the wild world
and your real prize will be
the frantic search.
Want everything. If you break
break going out not in.
How you live your life I don't care
but I'll sell my arms for you,
hold your secrets for ever.
If I speak of death
which you fear now, greatly,
it is without answers,
except that each
one we know is
in our blood.
Don't recall graves.
Memory is permanent.
Remember the afternoon's
yellow suburban annunciation.
Your goalie
in his frightening mask
dreams perhaps
of gentleness.
SUMMARY OF THE POEM:
The poem speaks about how the narrator, the father longing for the love from his only daughter. The poet reminiscences some of the incident shared between him and his daughter. The narrator introduced us to his only daughter whom she was much interested in the game hockey. There was a picture of hockey idols everywhere and she was pleased by the wounds and injuries. One time her daughter read the newspaper, in the sport column she read about how some player injured his leg and how some coach was assaulted. Then he now admired her attitude because at first when his daughter born he didn't expect this but it was liked by him more.
The poet loves his daughter character and points out everything like about her faults , her purple moods, her retreat and how she dislike the fact that his father say that he likes her. Then narrator tells that her daughter love to see the black and white movie Casablanca. Then the poet advises on his daughter about her teenage and she should be careful from every aspect.
And now the narrator is in loneliness that his daughter is busy in finding new friends. But he thought it is selfishness. One fine afternoon the narrator enters into his daughters room, he sat were his daughter usually laid down and he wishes her best as she willingly enters into the world of wilderness. He even mentioned not to fear about death as memories is permanent.
Interesting
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