The poet remembers them by all the physical work that they did ‘Nicking and slicing neatly, heavy sods over his shoulder, going down and down for the good turf. Digging’.
The poet describes how they dug all of their lives, and then he states that he digs as well ‘Between my fingers and my thumb the squat pen rests. I’ll dig with it’.
The poets relationship with her father is based on help and advise and knowledge ‘He taught me that telling the truth…’.
She describes problems and conflicts in there relationship ‘I wish he had not been so tired’. Implying that he wasn’t very energetic, this could have bin because he was an old man.
The poet also describes how he was strict and firm but a descent man ‘He taught me that telling the truth did not always mean a beating’.
He sounds like a man who is very sensible and always on top of things ‘Writing deposit slips and checks I think of him. He taught me how this is the form, he must have said: The way it is done. I learned to see bits of paper as a way to escape the life he knew and even in high school had a savings account’.
She admired the way that he cooked, she describes him cooking as if in a belay, and she also describes how he loved sharing his food ‘He cooked like a person dancing in a yoga meditation and craved the voluptuous sharing of his food’.
Towards the end of this poem she describes herself having her fathers traits ‘Now I look and cook just like him: my brain light; tossing this and that into the pot; seasoning none of my life the same way twice; happy to feed.
The extract is based on a king who offers his land to the most loving of his daughters, he tests them, he finds out who loves him the most.
There are three sisters Cordelia, Lear and Scynthian.
Cordelia and Lear keep sweet talking the king until they actually start to create a competition between the two of them.
And then there is an all out competition between them both, who can suck up the most.
But towards the end of the extract Scynthian gets the kings vote, due to the trew love she had for him.
Comparison
The thing that links all of these poems and extracts together is the remembrance of there fathers and how the fathers children admire them.
The children take on traits from their fathers such as cooking, knowledge, writing etc.
To sum it all up, the children loved their fathers and envied them.
