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| ====== The Father of My Country ====== | ====== The Father of My Country by Diane Wakoski ====== |
| Written by Diane Wakoski | |
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| From her //Emerald Ice: Selected Poems 1962-1987// collection. | From her //Emerald Ice: Selected Poems 1962-1987// collection. |
| <blockquote>Newly arrived in New York Wakoski was the first poet from the outside to truly join us, bringing with her an extraordinarily developed sense & practice of a poetry of the everyday that, in Robert Duncan’s words, “might be fantastic life.” It was in this way, as I later wrote of her, that her work, while striking a note of the autobiographical—even to some ears (but not hers) the ‘confessional’—asserts the truth of an imaginal life that moves (at several of its remarkable [cosmological] peaks) toward what Keats spoke of as soul-making or world-making & Wallace Stevens as a “supreme fiction.” ((“Diane Wakoski.” //The Poetry Foundation//, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/diane-wakoski.))</blockquote> | <blockquote>Newly arrived in New York Wakoski was the first poet from the outside to truly join us, bringing with her an extraordinarily developed sense & practice of a poetry of the everyday that, in Robert Duncan’s words, “might be fantastic life.” It was in this way, as I later wrote of her, that her work, while striking a note of the autobiographical—even to some ears (but not hers) the ‘confessional’—asserts the truth of an imaginal life that moves (at several of its remarkable [cosmological] peaks) toward what Keats spoke of as soul-making or world-making & Wallace Stevens as a “supreme fiction.” ((“Diane Wakoski.” //The Poetry Foundation//, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/diane-wakoski.))</blockquote> |
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| Rothenberg would later go on to classify Wakoski as a deep image poet, which was a term created by Rothenberg and Robert Kelly in 1961 to describe “stylized, resonant poetry that operated according to the Symbolist theory of correspondences, which posited a connection between the physical and spiritual realms.” ((“Deep Image.” //Poetry Foundation//, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/education/glossary/deep-image)) Rothenberg is described as being inspired by the Spanish //cante jondo//, or deep song, in the works of Frederico Garcia Lorca. Included in this genre were the works of Rothenberg, Kelly, Wokoski, and Clayton Eshlemen. | Rothenberg would later go on to classify Wakoski as a deep image poet, which was a term created by Rothenberg and Robert Kelly in 1961 to describe “stylized, resonant poetry that operated according to the Symbolist theory of correspondences, which posited a connection between the physical and spiritual realms.” ((“Deep Image.” //Poetry Foundation//, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/education/glossary/deep-image)) Rothenberg was deeply influenced by the Spanish //cante jondo//, or deep song, in the works of Frederico Garcia Lorca. Included in this genre were the works of Rothenberg, Kelly, Wokoski, and Clayton Eshlemen. |
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| Wakoski’s poetry by itself is described as being both personal and mythical as she tends to create mythic personas out of “archetypal figures” like George Washington as is featured in this poem. Her poetry is typically unconventional in form as it relies neither on a consistent rhythm, rhyme, or conventional structures to guide its poetics. She has additionally been criticized for her often “controversial” topics and “talky” poetics. | Wakoski’s poetry by itself is described as being both personal and mythical as she tends to create mythic personas out of “archetypal figures” like George Washington as is featured in this poem. Her poetry is typically unconventional in form as it relies neither on a consistent rhythm, rhyme, or conventional structures to guide its poetics. She has additionally been criticized for her often “controversial” topics and “talky” poems. |
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| Wakoski explains her unique style in the following passage: | Wakoski explains her unique style in the following passage: |
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| <blockquote>I feel a body of poetry has its own separate and organic life, just as a human being does. Conceiving of my poetry as a living organism, I began to conceive of it as a life. Of course, what it was representative of was my fantasy life. It drew from my own real life, but it began to have its own identity, its own life, and I felt that any life must have in it other people.</blockquote> | <blockquote>I feel a body of poetry has its own separate and organic life, just as a human being does. Conceiving of my poetry as a living organism, I began to conceive of it as a life. Of course, what it was representative of was my fantasy life. It drew from my own real life, but it began to have its own identity, its own life, and I felt that any life must have in it other people.</blockquote> ((Wokoski, Diane. "The Father of My Country." //The Serpent and the Fire//. Edited by Jerome Rothenberg and Javier Taboada, University of California Press, 2024, pp.679-83.)) |
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| Wakoski has published over 60 collections of poetry and prose and has been honored the Fulbright fellowship among other awards such as the Michigan Arts Foundation award and the National Endowment for the Arts award. | Wakoski has published over 60 collections of poetry and prose and has been honored the Fulbright fellowship among other awards such as the Michigan Arts Foundation award and the National Endowment for the Arts award. |
| The form of the poem "Father of My Country" is a confessional, meaning that it delves into a personal matter of the speaker: dealing with the loss of a connection to her father. The poem feels very intimate, as Wakoski brings the readers directly into the experience, which ranges from the speaker being under two years old to being "a lonely woman, without a purpose" later in life (682). | The form of the poem "Father of My Country" is a confessional, meaning that it delves into a personal matter of the speaker: dealing with the loss of a connection to her father. The poem feels very intimate, as Wakoski brings the readers directly into the experience, which ranges from the speaker being under two years old to being "a lonely woman, without a purpose" later in life (682). |
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| A key element of the form is the variety of line lengths. Many of the lines are short, emphasizing the bluntness of the speaker, along with the severity of the grief she is carrying from childhood. For example, early on in the poem, the speaker talks about still carrying the legacy of her father with her: | A key element of the form is the variety of line lengths. Many of the lines are short, emphasizing the bluntness of the speaker, along with the severity of the grief she is carrying from childhood. For example, early in the poem, the speaker talks about still carrying the legacy of her father with her: |
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| <blockquote>It is your blood I carry in a test tube, | <blockquote>Is it your blood I carry in a test tube, |
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| my arm, | my arm, |
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| ====== Imagery: The Power Behind Loss ====== | ====== Imagery: The Power Behind Loss ====== |
| Wakoski uses powerful imagery throughout the poem to describe the loss the narrator feels later in life from her father leaving during early childhood, while serving in the Navy. One example is when the speaker describes associations she has with her father: " . . . Father I have left in my steel filing cabinet as a name on my birth certificate . . . Father living in my wide cheekbones and short feet, Father in my Polish tantrums and my American speech . . ." (681). The juxtaposition between the speaker at first only acknowledging her Father's name on her birth certificate to then seeing her father in herself through both looks and actions shows the extent to which a lack of a fatherly figured impacted her life. This idea is strengthened later in the poem through comparisons made between the speaker's experiences and those of children whose fathers were present during childhood: | Wakoski uses powerful imagery throughout the poem to describe the loss the narrator feels later in life from her father leaving during early childhood, while serving in the Navy. One example is when the speaker describes associations she has with her father: " . . . Father I have left in my steel filing cabinet as a name on my birth certificate . . . Father living in my wide cheekbones and short feet, Father in my Polish tantrums and my American speech . . ." (681). The juxtaposition between the speaker at first only acknowledging her father's name on her birth certificate to then seeing her father in herself through both looks and actions shows the extent to which a lack of a fatherly figure impacted her life. This idea is strengthened later in the poem through comparisons made between the speaker's experiences and those of children whose fathers were present during childhood: |
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| <blockquote>. . . other children said, 'My father is a doctor,' | <blockquote>. . . other children said, 'My father is a doctor,' |
