My Father's Love Letters By Yusef Komunyakaa

The poem, “My Father’s Love Letters” by Yusef Komunyakaa, shares a story about a dysfunctional family. The poet, Komunyakaa uses the first person point of view to describe the separation of his parents and how it affects each one of the characters. Through a son’s eyes, the narrator paints a colorful picture of his relationship with his father right after his mother has left them both in order to escape a life of physical abuse at the hands of his father. Through the eyes of the young narrator, the audience learns much about the characters and their painful history as a family. Through the clever use of poetic devices such as imagery, metaphors, personification, and an allusion. Komunyakaa is able to create meaningful and memorable impressions

The poet portrays the mother as a much wiser, gentler and forgiving person than the father. In the poem she is portrayed as a romantic when she sends the father and son postcards from her new home and the son describes them as, “postcards of desert flowers taller than a man” (Kimunyakaa lines 4-5) The strong and tall flowers are used as an implied metaphor or symbol for the mother. These taller than men flowers represent her and her success, because they seem to imply that she is doing much better in since she left and started a new life for herself elsewhere. The use of “desert flowers” also implies that although it is not easy for the mother to start a new life, she is still able to be successful. It is interesting that the poet does not identify the flower by name, but describes it as simply as a nameless, “desert flower.” This also may suggest that the father still does not fully recognize or appreciate the beauty and the courage within the mother that allowed her to finally leave him and stop the

The son warns his mother to not return to his father and writes her, “Polka Dots & Moonbeams never made the swelling go down” (Komunyakaa lines 10-11). Here the poet uses the allusion to a very well-known romantic song by Frank Sinatra called, “Polka Dots & Moonbeams,“ to show how he warns his mother to not be lured and persuaded by the father’s romance, because he feels that it is likely only fleeting fantasy. The imagery alone here suggests that the narrator fears that his father would likely lure his mother back to only abuse her again if she did