For My Daughter
In keeping with the weary cynicism of my last post, I thought I'd read for you one of my favourite poems of negativity: "For My Daughter" by the enigmatic American poet Weldon Kees. There are few closing couplets more devastating in all of sonnetry.
AUDIO
4 comments:
Ok. I promise not to be a chronic commenter. But oh my. What an incredible poem.
Agreed. Just ordered it through interlibrary loans.
agreed
After "For My Daughter" by Weldon Kees
Not meant as antidote; but puzzlement. With no children
there's no authority, no experience; denied,
I think your fictional fatherhood akin to stunt propagan-
da. Why not just smother her effigy, then suicide?
That your daughter would grow up to be human
is obvious, and the objective; not venal
to love and grow and fail, to be a woman;
in your poem, virtue's repealed; a penal
colony for what's best in her. But what's best in you?
Where would you lead her, what would you do,
how would you fail, inject the venal into her veins,
or perhaps, against type, you'd slay fear, and, slain,
she'd bounce upon your knee, with laughter.
But perhaps it is better you were never her father.
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