Summary Of Sign For My Father Who Stressed The Bunt By David Bottoms

Sometimes it can be difficult for sons to understand the lessons that fathers teach to them, leading to a disconnect between the two. This is the case for the speaker and his father in David Bottoms’ “Sign for My Father, Who Stressed the Bunt.” As a child, the speaker lacks appreciation for his father, yet nevertheless they share a common love. As an adult, reminiscing on his baseball experiences with his father, the son, through his retrospective point of view, now appreciates his father for all his father did. Through diction and varying points of view this poem emphasizes the lack of understanding between the two characters, while symbols and figurative comparisons express their mutual love; this poem analyzes the loving, yet dysfunctional

The baseball diamond on which the father and son practice is a “rough diamond,” but also a “hand-cut field” (1, 2). The conflicting nature of these descriptions reflects a similar relationship between the father and son. The son recalls that he “admired” his father’s bunting form, but he does not focus on his father “enough to take [his] eyes off the bank” (9, 10). As a child, the son focuses on the “bank” and how he was able to “homer” wherever he wanted instead of internalizing his father’s lessons (10, 13). In this context, the connotations of the bank reflect money and success, as the associated feelings of homerun reflect fame and fortune. In other words, the son ignores the tender sacrifice his father tries to impart, while focusing on the glamour of baseball, demonstrating the division between the two. In reminiscing, the son accepts that he “never learned what [his father was] laying down” but that he is “getting a grip on the sacrifice,” finally understanding what his father wanted to teach him so many years ago (20, 23). Thus, through diction and connotation this poem highlights the constant disconnect between the father and his

The son recalls that he “watched from the infield, / the mound, the backstop,” but he still was unable to internalize his father’s lesson (4-5). Whether the son watches from nearby or afar, he fails connect with his father. As a child, the son’s understanding of his father could not change despite different perspectives. This flawed communication continues as “years passed” and the father “still stressed the same technique” (12, 16). Now looking back upon his childhood experiences, the son, through the eyes of a grown adult, finally begins to understand his father’s lessons. The son writes this poem as “the sign” that he understands his father’s lessons (22). Moreover, the relationship between the son and his father has clearly changed with time. In the past, the two were unable to appreciate fully each other, whereas now the son finally breaks through the disconnect that he formerly shared with his father. Through points of view, this poem conveys both the former misunderstanding between the father and the son and the son’s newfound recognition of his