My Fathers Martial Arta More Closer Look
Stephen Shu-Ling's poem "My Father's Martial Art" points to a very important distinction with the title alone. This title makes it clear that the martial art is the father's and not the speaker's, his son. This clear ownership already pointed out in the title leads the reader to sense tension between the speaker and his father from the beginning. It shows this tension because there seems to be a big emphasis on the word My, and showing that the father seems to care about the martial art instead of his son. Continuing with the same feeling, the first line of the poem shows the mother's adverse feelings toward her husband by saying that when he came home "he looked like a monk and stank of green fungus." This strange figurative language certainly does not lend itself to a highly respected image of the father. It only adds to the overall feeling that what this man is doing is not approved of by the mother or the speaker. Comparing this man to a monk and green fungus is not by any means positive here and therefore, without even knowing more about the situation, the reader is already led to believe that whatever this man is doing is not beneficial to his family and is therefore causing this serious tension. This unclear tension set up from the beginning is what unifies the poem. The questions that remain to be answered are whether this tension is for a good reason and what exactly the man does in order to cause it. The rest of this poem shows why the child may feel this way and his struggle with the problem of why his father is not there for him. And because of his father's martial art, there has not been as much focus on the family as there needs to be.
This is a lyric poem which initiates an immediate intimacy from the beginning, neither identifying who "he" nor "Mother" is. Because of this comfortable style the reader feels that the speaker does deeply love his father. Evidence of this love is shown by line 20 and 21: "Infrequently he taught me tricks...
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