Poem Father to son by Elizabeth Jennings

1. Submitted to:
Mrs. Sunita Malhotra
Submitted By:
Pratishtha Aggarwal
XI-B

4.
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. 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.
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.
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.
FATHER TO
SON

5. INTRODUCTION
‘Father to son’ is an autobiographical poem of Elizabeth
Jennings. It describes an exclusively personal
experience. However, its appeal is fairly universal. Both
the father and son are poles apart. There is a generation
gap between the two. They think and live differently and
have become strangers to each other. Inspite of an urge
for reunion, the separation continues and can’t be
helped.

6. The British poet Elizabeth Jennings has published more than 20 books of poetry
since the 1950s. She writes short, meditative lyrics that are known for their
simplicity, control, and range of feeling. These qualities have linked Jennings to a
group of poets, usually referred to as The Movement, who were writing in England
during the 1940s and 1950s. The members of this group, poets like Kingsley
Amis, Thom Gunn, Philip Larkin, and John Wain, never consciously formed a
movement, but their poetry reveals a shared love for simplicity and an acceptance
of regular meter and rhyme.
AUTHOR ELIZABETH JENNINGS
(1926 - 2001)
Elizabeth Jennings was born on July 18, 1926, in Boston, Lincolnshire. She
claims that she discovered poetry at age 13 and began to write, encouraged by a
teacher and her uncle. Jennings attended St. Anne's College, Oxford, from 1945
to 1949 and was greatly stimulated by the intellectual atmosphere there.
One of Britain's most popular poets, her work was famed for its imagery,
logic and emotional sensitivity

7. It was at this time that she began to associate with poets of The Movement;
some of her first published poems appeared in Oxford Poetry 1948, edited by
Kingsley Amis and James Michie. Jennings worked in the Oxford City Library
from 1950 to 1958 and as a publisher's reader from 1958 to 1960. During this
time she published three books of poetry and a book for children entitled "Let's
Have Some Poetry!" (1960). In the early 1960s, Jennings suffered a breakdown
and was confined to a hospital. The poems she wrote after her release are
collected in Recoveries (1964) and The Mind Has Mountains (1966).
Jennings is an extremely prolific poet. She writes quickly, revises little, and
claims that her poems "come out very clean." She differs from the other poets
of The Movement in her devotion to Roman Catholicism, a theme that
pervades much of her poetry. Jennings also writes about friendship,
relationships, places, and art. She does not write autobiographical poems, but
her religious concerns, mental illness, and other personal experiences
influence the themes and insights expressed in her poetry.
Elizabeth Joan Jennings, poet, born July 18 1926; died October 26 2001

8. OTHER WORKS BY ELIZABETH
JENNINGS
ONE FLESH
Lying apart now, each in a separate bed,
He with a book, keeping the light on late,
She like a girl dreaming of childhood,
All men elsewhere---it is as if they wait
Some new event; the book he holds unread,
Her eyes fixed on the shadows overhead.
Tossed up like flotsam from a former passion,
How cool they lie. They hardly ever touch,
Or if they do it is like a confession
Of having little feeling--or too much.
Chastity faces them , a destination
For which their whole lives were a preparation.
Strangely apart, yet strangely close together,
Silence between them like a thread to hold
And not wind in. And time itself's a feather
Touching them gently. Do they know they're old,
These two who are my father and my mother
Whose fire from which I came, has now grown
cold?

9. The unknown child
The child will never lie in me, and you
Will never be its father. Mirrors must
Replace the real image, make it true
So that the gentle love-making we do
Has powerful passions and a parents’ trust
The child will never lie in me and make
Our loving careful. We must kiss and touch
Quietly, watch our reflexions break
As in a pool that is disturbed. Oh take
My watchful love; there must not be too much
A child lies within my mind. I see
the eyes, the hand. I see you also there.
I see you waiting with an honest care,
Within my mind, within me bodily,
And bird and death close to us constantly.

10. Old Age
You were quite silent till the doctor came
Kindly to question, breaking through your thoughts.
And were you glad that he recalled your name,
Asked you about your pets,
Or would you rather doze there, much the same
As some old cat or dog, some lump of fur
Beside the fire, unmoving and unmoved,
Grateful that no-one made you speak or stir,
Yet wanting to be loved
And finding it in warm sheets and soft chair?
You know who gives real kindness, none the less,
Not to child's shouting like some old ones do.
You feel for certain hands as though to bless,
And beg a blessing too;
And then you weep, simply from happiness.

11. In Memory of Anyone Unknown to Me
At this particular time I have no one
Particular person to grieve for, though there must
Be many, many unknown ones going to dust
Slowly, not remembered for what they have done
Or left undone. For these, then, I will grieve
Being impartial, unable to deceive.
How they lived, or died, is quite unknown,
And, by that fact gives my grief purity--
An important person quite apart from me
Or one obscure who drifted down alone.
Both or all I remember, have a place.
For these I never encountered face to face.
Sentiment will creep in. I cast it out
Wishing to give these classical repose,
No epitaph, no poppy and no rose
From me, and certainly no wish to learn about
The way they lived or died. In earth or fire
They are gone. Simply because they were human, I admire.

12. Poem in Winter
Today the children begin to hope for snow
And look in the sky for auguries of it.
It is not for such omens that we wait,
Our world may not be settled by the slow
Falling of flakes to lie across our thought.
And even if the snow comes down indeed
We shall still stand behind a pane of glass
Untouched by it, and watch the children press
Their image on the drifts the snow has laid
On a winter they think they have made.
This is a wise illusion. Better to
Believe the near world is created by
A wish, a shaping hand, a certain eye,
Than hide in the mind's corner as we do
As though there were no world, no fall of snow.

13. In a foreign city
You cannot speak for no one knows
Your language. You must try to catch
By glances or a steadfast gaze
The attitude of those you watch.
No conversations can amaze:
Noises may find you but not speech.
Now you have circled silence, stare
With all the subtlety of sight.
Noise may trap ears but eye discerns
How someone on his elbows turns
And in the moon's long exile here
Touches another in the night.