This is a presentation that I had made on the poem Father to Son by Elizabeth Jennings... Hope people find it useful...

1. Father to Son
BY ELIZABETH JENNINGS

2.  The poem ‘Father to son’ is a sad plea of a father to his son.
The father is filled with sadness at the growing distance
between him and his son. He wants to make amends for all the
mistakes that he has made.
 Elizabeth Jennings highlights the universal problem of
generation gap through the words of a father. They think and
live differently. They have become strangers to each other. In
spite of an urge for reunion, the separation continues and can’t
be helped.

3. Stanza 1
I do not understand this child
Though we have lived together now
In the same house for years. I know
Nothing of him, so try to build
Up a relationship from how
He was when small.

4. Stanza 1
 The father says, that he doesn’t understand his child though they
have lived in the same house together for years. He knows nothing
about his child. So, the father tries to build up a relationship with
his son from the early years.
 The father wants to begin from scratch again.
 The gap between the father and son is highlighted by the words
‘this child’. The father doesn’t even name his Son.

5. Stanza 2
Yet have I killed
The seed I spent or sown it where
The land is his and none of mine?
We speak like strangers, there's no sign
Of understanding in the air.
This child is built to my design
Yet what he loves I cannot share.

6. Stanza 2
 The father wonders if he has killed the seed which is his or has
sown it where the land belongs to the son and not the father. It
means that the father wonders if it all is his mistake or somehow
he tried to take his son on a path which the son never wanted to
pursue. Maybe the son was forced to and thus he stopped listening
to his father.
 Both –of them talk like total strangers and there are no signs of
understanding between them. The bond between father and son is a
very strong bond traditionally, but in this case the father says that
his son resembles him, yet what the son likes, the father dislikes.
The father cannot share the loves of his son.

7. Stanza 3
Silence surrounds us. I would have
Him prodigal, returning to
His father's house, the home he knew,
Rather than see him make and move
His world. I would forgive him too,
Shaping from sorrow a new love.

8. Stanza 3
 There is no dialogue between the father and the son. Silence
surrounds them. The father now becomes somewhat selfish. He
wishes that his son would be prodigal and then will return to his
father’s house, the house he always knew. It means that the father
wants his son to give respect to his father’s wishes. This would be
a much better scenario than to see his control his world.
 Now, the tone of the father gets a bit arrogant. He wants the son
to ask for forgiveness and the father would forgive him too. So
that, a new understanding could be developed from sadness.
 In this stanza, the father seems to be angry with his son. He
displays a self-centered wish to have control over his son.

9. Stanza 4
Father and son, we both must live
On the same globe and the same land.
He speaks: I cannot understand
Myself, why anger grows from grief.
We each put out an empty hand,
Longing for something to forgive.

10. Stanza 4
 Both the father and son must live on the same globe and the same
land. It means that they must have same thinking and the same
level of understanding for each other’s thoughts and wishes.
 The son says that he cannot understand what the father wants and
the father says that he is unable to understand why his anger
grows from grief. The father here is frustrated.
 Still, they both want to reconcile. They put out an empty hand for
friendship. They both long for something to forgive. But their
hands are empty as they fail to reignite the father-son bond.