One great poem to read today: Michael Ondaatje’s “To a Sad Daughter”

This April marks the 30th iteration of National Poetry Month, which was launched by the Academy of American Poets in April 1996. To celebrate, the Literary Hub staff will be recommending one great poem to read every (work) day of the month. We make no claim (except when we do) that these poems are the “best” poems in any category; they are simply poems we love. The only other thing they all have in common is that they are available to read for free online, so you can enjoy them along with us. The internet is still good for some things, after all. Today we recommend:

One great poem to read today: Michael Ondaatje’s “To a Sad Daughter”

I think I first read this wonderful Ondaatje poem—at the insistence of my (much) older brothers—when I wasn’t much older than its 16-year-old subject. As a literary-minded southern Ontarian hockey fan, I was hooked by its opening stanza:

All night long the hockey pictures
gaze down at you
sleeping in your tracksuit.
Belligerent goalies are your ideal.
Threats of being traded
cuts and wounds
– all this pleases you.
0 my god! you say at breakfast
reading the sports page over the Alpen
as another player breaks his ankle
or assaults the coach.

Like many young, aspiring writers growing up far from anything like an artistic hub, I had little to no idea you could simply write about what was in front of you; though raised in a very bookish house I didn’t know anyone who even knew an actual writer. So, here was Ondaatje just writing about his day-t0-day, grappling with the intense swings of emotion any parent must reckon with as their children grow into autonomy, forever leaving behind the heartbreakingly sweet (and frequently tedious) dependences of childhood.

Reading it again—as may be obvious from the preceding sentence—I am now older than Ondaatje was when he wrote it, and I come to the poem as the parent of a two-and-a-half-year-old AND a fifteen-year-old. As age gaps go, it’s a big one, but each child grants perspective on the other, perhaps a deeper appreciation for how quickly it all goes, and how we must be flexible about the dreams we have for our children. And this is what I love about Ondaatje’s poem: whatever paternal advice he allows himself to commit to paper is neither proscriptive nor specific; it is more how than what. And it is beautiful.

You step delicately
into the wild world
and your real prize will be
the frantic search.
Want everything. If you break
break going out not in.
How you live your life I don’t care
but I’ll sell my arms for you,
hold your secrets for ever.

Read the full poem here.