Poem Analysis Of Anthem, By Jim Daniels

Anthem Anthem, written by Jim Daniels, is a free-verse poem, and this essay examines thirteen lines of the overall poem, which comprise two stanzas. Within the first stanza, a daughter or son uses a reflective voice to consider how his or her father’s work from when the speaker was a child affected their relationship. The second stanza describes the present, still strained relationship, that the father and now grown-up speaker admit they want to improve. Though not particularly evident in these thirteen lines, the second stanza takes place as the speaker and father stand before the start of a football game, singing the national anthem. This situation is expressed throughout unmentioned parts of this poem, and this song is alluded to within

Throughout the poem, the speaker uses his poetic style to reveal a friendly yet distanced relationship that the speaker and father share together. Beginning the poem with “Thirty-three years of coughing thick factory air,” the speaker introduces his father as a diligent factory worker (1-2, Daniels). The use of the alliteration “thirty-three” in this line, strategically draws the reader’s attention to just how long the dad subjects himself to such straining labor in order to provide for his family, showing a love from the father for his child (1). The speaker continues with “of drifting to sleep through the heavy ring of machinery, of twelve hour days” painting the image of the father working nonstop, and as a result, repeatedly falling asleep on the job (3-4). By saying, “In my sleep,

However, the speaker hears the father’s singing as “a children’s song,” which are often characterized as simple-minded (9). Since the line “my shoulder against his” demonstrates the speaker to be the same height as the father and therefore also an adult, the speaker could initially consider his father’s straight-forward attempt at a connection to be either too simple for what attention he should be given now that he is grown-up (11). The speaker believes the father should have tried for this connection when he was still a child rather than “now” (8). These negative attitudes at the beginning of the stanza, allows the speaker to create a shift for the audience with the next phrase, “I lean into him” (9). The audience sees the speaker ignoring his gut, giving into his want to form a relation with his father. Still, this action is done by the speaker with “the umbrella and rain my excuse,” because the lack of having a paternal