Friday, November 27, 2009
Given Something to Keep
I read "The Gift" several (really like ten) times. The more I read it the more it really did open up for me. On the surfaces it is about a boy whose father pulls a splinter from his hand. The boy grows up and does the same for his wife. Really though this poem is so much more complex. I really don't think "The Gift" in the poem is that the father was able to relieve the sons pain by pulling out the splinter. In the second stanza it talks about he fathers hands and how they were measures of tenderness laid against his face. Then it says the flames of discipline he raised above my head. These 4 lines really give a look into their relationship, outside of that one moment. The father was loving and caring with his child but when discipline was needed it was used. I would consider my father to be the exact same way. We are the best of friends but he keeps me in line. I think the gift that was given to the son was the gift of love. Through example the father was able to teach his son how to real love and care for someone. The son then reciprocated that love back to the father in a very innocent way by kissing his father. When he grows up he expresses that love to his wife in a more complex way. Taking care of her.
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Mallory,
ReplyDeleteI must admit “The Gift” is one of the poems I too had to read several times to catch and realize all that Li-Young Lee was trying to convey. I think it has to do with his luxuriant use of words, he really puts them to work, and then he puts our minds to work trying to discover all their multi-level meanings. I read the poem “The Hammock” also written by him. I must say I had to read that one several times too. Because he makes an ordinary thing into something extraordinary, something we all can relate to, but at the same have to study to truly understand. But I think the greatest thing about his poems is the fact that his poems trigger a certain memory in us. I liked what you shared about your father, about how you and he are the best of friends, but that he keeps you in line. I think that is what best friends and fathers are for.
It says a lot about their relationship that when Lee wrote this poem, he did so with the wisdom of age and ability to look back retrospectively, and that he conveys the emotion of tenderness, above all else, coming from his father. It goes along with your idea of their reltionship being very loving but with some level of discipline mixed in, as evident in the poem. Much like what both you and Elizabeth say, you realize as you grow how loving and nescessary being raised with a certain strictness is. So even the discipline is recalled with a sense of affection from the speaker. As if in his tender hands laying on his face both instill in him love and strength that carries with him into adulthood.
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