My Father's Love Letters

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2001

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Background

Physical Context

In “My Father’s Love Letters,” Komunyakaa juxtaposes the gritty setting of a “toolshed” (Line 25) with the tenderness of the terms of endearment in the love letters the speaker writes on behalf of his father, filled with words such as “Love, / Baby, Honey, Please” (Lines 17-18). Though the speaker believes that his father genuinely “[l]abor[s] over” (Line 35) these words, the “quiet brutality / Of voltage meters & pipe threaders” (Lines 24-25) that surround his father say otherwise. By contrasting the father and the son’s external and internal experiences, Komunyakaa suggests that no matter how hard the speaker’s father tries to win back the mother, he will never be as successful a husband as he is a carpenter who can “look at blueprints / & say how many bricks / Formed each wall” (Lines 29-31).

This physical setting appears even bleaker in comparison to the poem’s references to the natural world, which also carry a sense of melancholy. Though the speaker does not reveal the speaker’s mother’s whereabouts, he does explain that she “sent postcards of desert flowers / Taller than men” (Lines 4-5). The reader may assume that she is in a desert environment when she writes the postcards, perhaps in the American Southwest, where the arid climate suggests a lack of vitality. The speaker’s father has tenderness toward the natural world, as he “stole roses & hyacinth / For his yard” (Lines 32-33), but he must steal the flowers in order to enjoy them. Even the utilitarian surroundings of the father’s shed have a touch of nature’s beauty that is compromised by the father’s hard edges:

The gleam of a five-pound wedge

On the concrete floor

Pulled a sunset

Through the doorway of his tool shed (Lines 23-26).

The beauty of the sunset, a literary symbol that often represents endings, contrasts with the heaviness of the father’s work life that surrounds the light and the colors of the sky. This image and setting emphasize the dominance of the father’s tendency toward violence over what was once beautiful in his own life.

Rhetorical Context

Much of this poem centers on rhetoric, or the art of persuasion in written or verbal form. The speaker’s father hopes to persuade the speaker’s mother to return with his talk of “Love, / Baby, Honey, Please” (Lines 17-18), just as the speaker-son hopes that the words will fall on deaf ears. At the same time, the speaker scrutinizes his father, deciding that no matter how hard the man labors “over a simple word” (Line 35), his words fail to redeem him for his violence towards the speaker’s mother.

As much as the speaker attempts to present his father objectively to the reader throughout much of the poem, the speaker cannot help undercutting his own presentation. The speaker describes his mother’s absence before he focuses on his father’s letters; this order of events implies, however briefly, that the mother might be at fault for her absence. The tone of this suggestion changes quickly, in Lines 5-7, where the idea of the wronged husband is turned on its head: “He would beg, / Promising to never beat her / Again.” This sudden turn has an instantaneous effect on the reader, leaving the reader no pause in which to reconsider the possibility that the speaker’s mother is at fault.

Just as significantly, when the speaker describes his father’s affectionate word choice—”Love, / Baby, Honey, Please” (Lines 12-13)—he follows this list of terms of endearment with the phrase “quiet brutality” (Line 19). Finally, the speaker chooses to end the poem not on the poignant image of the father “[l]aboring over a simple word” (Line 35), which links the speaker’s father emotional effort to his dedication to his construction work; rather, the poem ends when the speaker admits that his father is “almost / Redeemed by what he tried to say” (Lines 35-36). In this way, though the speaker appears to present his father honestly, the speaker makes it clear that he does not intend for readers to come to their own conclusions about his father. The goal of the poem is to persuade the reader that no matter how hard his father may try to win back his mother, the attempt does not make up for the past.