Analysis of For my Father
For my Father
Upon a loom I will weave your words,
With a pen I will write your songs,
And with a hook, I will crochet your memories.
Your words
Your songs
Your memories
Are of long ago
Of a time before I was born:
A time of war
Of cataclysm
Of horror
Beyond all but the most depraved imagining.
Yet your words
Your songs
Your lacelike memories
Are also of laughter
Of joy
And of hope.
This better world you hoped for,
This better world you fought for,
This better world you brought me into
Is filled with song of a different kind,
Far beyond those dreams of sunlight and peace.
Upon a loom of dust
I will weave your dreams into mine;
With a pen of darkest blood
I will write my words with yours;
With a hook of sharpest yearning
I will crochet a pattern filled with your music.
Inge Meldgaard 2011
http://redmatilda.deviantart.com/gallery/?q=niels anker lerche#/dn407t
This photo of my father (who died in 2002) was taken during WWII when, as a Danish marine engineer, his ship joined the British navy after Germany invaded Denmark, as did nearly all the Danish ships at sea. Many thousands of Danes lost their lives sailing with the British.
The poem was inspired by a series of related incidents and conversations. I recently converted some of my father’s 1940s 78s to digital format, after they had already been recorded to tape many years ago. When speaking with my sister about this, she mentioned that she intended to crochet my father’s old tapes from more recent years into a rug, because they were in very poor condition; which is a remarkably creative concept. Soon afterwards, a friend on Facebook gave a link to a site which has hits from the 1940s and onwards, and I have been listening to the 1940s tunes with great enjoyment, and in some cases, amusement. During and after WWII, my impression is that American and British music was aimed primarily at creating a cheerful and hopeful message, helping to keep allied troops and the civilian population from despairing. There is a quaint naivety in most of the songs, which contrasts so oddly with those from the 1960s and 70s, in particular, when the anti-war movements became very strong.
For further information about my father’s WWII years, using original documents, see:
http://redmatilda.deviantart.com/art/Book-of-the-Dead-102979151?q=boost:popular by:redmatilda anker&qo=3
Scheme | a bcd bCdexfxag bCdaxx ffhxx xxxxgx h i x x i e |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1110 010111111 10111111 010111011100 11 11 1100 11101 10101111 0111 1100 110 011101010100 111 11 11100 110110 11 011 1101111 1101111 110111101 1111101001 101111101 010111 11111011 1011101 1111111 10111010 110101011110 11 111001110111 11111011011010111010011011110101010100010111101010111101011111101010 0101010101010101000010110001011110111100110110101010111010111011100111101101010111011111010101011001010101100100010101100011110110111110101001111001011110100011001010010110101101000101011010010100100101010110110001001010101101101101110110111010100100101011001101 11001001110111001001001 1111101111101 |
Closest metre | Iambic octameter |
Characters | 2,386 |
Words | 409 |
Sentences | 22 |
Stanzas | 12 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 3, 9, 6, 5, 6, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1 |
Lines Amount | 36 |
Letters per line (avg) | 52 |
Words per line (avg) | 11 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 156 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 33 |
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Submitted on May 01, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:02 min read
- 3 Views
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"For my Father" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 25 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/71566/for-my-father>.
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