Eric Chock's Poem For My Father

It is common knowledge that sons inherit traits from their father. Some of these traits can be positive, some negative. Building a paternal relationship is necessary for the passing down of traits. However, a true fatherly bond should pass down the best qualities a father holds. These include fatherly instincts, like love, caring abilities, and bright futures. “Poem for My Father” by Eric Chock explores the dreams the speaker’s father had as a young man and the dreams the speaker has for himself. It deals with how the speaker's dream is based on the dreams of his father. “The Gift” by Li-Young Lee presents a father’s gift to a child during an anxious moment in the child’s life by removing a metal splinter in the child’s palm. The child uses

By spending time and reflecting on how a father treats their son, people can obtain valuable drives from their father. In Chock’s poem, during the thought process of the son, the father is outside the house putting stones together to make a wall around the house. The speaker switches between his thoughts and his father’s thoughts. One of his father’s thoughts was how he “remembers the harbor full of fish, / orchids in the hair of women thirty years before” (Chock, lines 18-19). While his father remembers this, he also, while thinking about his son, “takes a big slice of stone, and pounds it into the ground” (Chock, lines 24-25). The father remembers his dreams thirty years ago about him being focused on catching fish and chasing girls. These items represent his desire to build a family since fish provides money and having a girl allows him to start a loving family. The stones represent dreams that the father has for the family. As the father puts another stone in the wall, he thinks of his son and his dream of catching girls and fish. This

The son in Lee’s “The Gift” is recalling the moment his father helped him remove a splinter from his hands. The father is telling a story to the son while removing the splinter. The son said that “before the story ended, he’d removed / the iron sliver I thought I’d die from” (Lee, lines 4-5), which refers to how the splinter was removed before the father’s story ended. This indicates that the father removed the splinter quickly showing his skill and caring ability to tell a story while removing a splinter. The child also said that he “kissed [his] father” (Lee, line 35) after he was “given something to keep” (Lee, line 34). This is a reference to how he was appreciative of his father for keeping him calm while removing the splinter. The strong fatherly relationship is shown by the kiss that the son gave to the father. The son is appreciative that the father has given him something: the gift of care and hope. From the care, the father successfully heals the son by removing the splinter. The hope is from keeping the son calm by telling a story since he thought, he was going to die from the splinter. This demonstrates the strong paternal relationship between the father and son. While the father helped the son remove the splinter, the son was calm and did not think “metal that will bury me” (Lee, line