LO: To analyse ‘Poem at Thirty-Nine’

‘5 A DAY STARTER’
What poems do the following quotations come from? Justify your answers.
1. Something is happening. A stranger’s features / faintly start to twist before his eyes, / a half-
formed ghost.
2. What immortal hand or eye / dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

3. It grows back, a stump of a shoot / grows longer, grows moist, grows strong veins, / it ties the
other tongue in knots
4. In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song / betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to
belong
5. Love’s not time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks / within his bending sickle’s compass come; /
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, / but bears it out even to the edge of doom

Haven’t studied the poem yet? Look at the list of contents in your poetry anthology to see the poem titles and see if you can
work it out.
CHALLENGE: If you had to comment on each quotation in an essay what would you focus on for each one?
What stands out for you most?
 In order to achieve a level 3 or above in
Question 1 (Unseen Poetry) you need to
be able to comment about the effect the
poem has on the reader – you need to be
able to show that you can connect or
relate to the poem in some way.

Before we begin to read today’s poem consider the following:

• What do you like or love most about your parents?
• What are their failings?
• How much are you like them?
You may want to jot down your ideas in your books to refer to later in the lesson.
 Show your understanding and knowledge of
analyzing poetry through the use of TARTWARS
– independently complete the table on the
poem ‘Poem at Thirty-Nine’ much as you would
if this was an unseen poem in Paper 1.

Remember that the unseen poetry question is worth 20

marks – you should spend 35 minutes on this question.

How much of this time do you think should be spent

analyzing and annotating the poem?
Why thirty-nine? Why could this be considered as a pivotal age in a person’s life?
Walker is 39, she is on the cusp of turning 40 - an age that is considered to be “middle-aged”. On big birthdays people tend to reflect upon their
lives and think back on what they have achieved, mistakes made etc. this is reflected in the poem’s content and tone.
The poem is confessional and looks back at Walker’s relationship with her father who is no longer alive.
In stanza 1 she regrets (“I wish”) that he was so busy when she was born – refer back to poet information in anthology – Walker’s father was a
sharecropper, a farmer who worked on land that wasn’t his. Perhaps Walker felt like an additional burden to him? She was one of 8 children so life
must have been very difficult.
Stanza 2: The first thing Walker remembers when she thinks about him is money – him writing checks, putting deposits into the bank and teaching
her how. Clearly budgeting and saving was important to the family as Walker mentions how she had her own savings account in high school.
Stanza 3: She remembers the life lesson he taught her about telling the truth and mentions how at times her truths may have caused her father
pain and “grieved” him – she is aware that she disappointed him, despite there never being any deception between them she has hurt him
anyway.
Stanza 4: Walker reminisces about her father’s relaxed way of cooking and how he enjoyed sharing food - eating was seen as an event for him
Stanza 5: Walker reflects and compares herself to her father – their similarities in experimenting with the ingredients in recipes that the generous
nature of sharing meals etc.
Stanza 6: She acknowledges an awareness of her father’s pride and lists the reasons why: “cooking, writing, chopping wood, staring into the fire”
why would her father be proud of these particular actions? “Cooking” demonstrates passion and hospitality. “writing” is Walker’s achievements and
efforts as an activist and feminist. “chopping wood” could represent her hard working nature, the fact that she is still grounded and aware of her
origins, “staring into the fire” is symbolic – fire could be seen as the essence of life – as this is a poem written when she is 39 and she is reflecting
back on her life - perhaps she is saying that she still has a passion and zest for life; her life’s fire is still burning and she knows the importance of
this because her father’s fire has been extinguished.
There are two semantic fields within the poem – the first in stanza two is of business and money, the second in stanza four and five relates to
cooking.
The poem explores the ideas of growing up, father-daughter relationships, lessons being taught and learnt, grief and the grieving process

The tone in the first three stanzas of the poem seems mournful – Walker is reminiscing on the difficulties of her father’s life: his tiredness, their
money struggles & the way that she may have caused him hurt and grief
The tone changes at the start on the fourth stanza when she repeats “How I miss my father!” – note the exclamation mark this time. This line could
be read in two ways: either she is lamenting or she is chuckling to herself remembering the events that she recounts in the following stanza.
The tone in stanza four and five seems more hopeful and optimistic, it feels as though Walker is now smiling to herself acknowledging the
similarities that she has realised she shares with her father and the admiration she knows he would have felt for her.
“I learned to see bits of paper as a way to escape” – they are “bits of paper” to her (the phrase stands alone on it’s own line to single out this fact)
but to her father they are so much more. Seems to question the importance of money but then shows her evolution later when she has her own
savings account. The idea of escape – what might this look like for Walker and her father? Would it differ? What might they need to escape from?

“The voluptuous sharing of good food” – “voluptuous” is an interesting adverb to describe the sharing of food. “Voluptuous” means a pleasurable
feeling but it is most commonly used to describe attractive larger curvaceous women – particularly the build of African American women like
Walker. Why has Walker chosen this particular adverb? Is it because the food helps to make women like herself voluptuous? The adverb creates
sensual connotations for the action of “sharing good food” – that this is an activity to be revelled in and fully enjoyed.

“My brain light” – the lightness of her brain whilst cooking suggests that Walker is relaxing from the mindlessness of the activity, perhaps she feels
light with the pleasure of realising that se is like her father. It could also be interpreted that as time moves on Walker’s grief is lessening and
therefore lightening it’s load on her mind/brain. The “light” could be a symbolic representation of life similar to the “fire” mentioned in stanza 6.

“Seasoning none of my life the same way twice” relates to the idea of variety being the of the spice of life – perhaps Walker’s father’s death has
taught her to live life to it’s fullest, that no two days should be the same. Walker has lived an adventurous life as a civil rights activist and a
feminist; he first marriage was the first legal inter-racial marriage in Mississippi, she later went on to have a lesbian relationship with Tracey
Chapman (the singer of ‘Fast Car’).

Repetition of “How I miss my father” – repetition splits the poem into two halves, the negative memories and enjoyable ones
Repetition of “he taught me” reinforces how important this is as a theme of the poem (despite being busy and tired, he had time to teach his
daughter)
He cooked like a person dancing in a yoga meditation – simile and oxymoron the idea of yoga is calm and relaxing, possibly disciplined where are
dancing is wild, energetic and fast. This contrast shows the dual nature of her father, the language in this stanza also contrasts to the “beatings”
referenced in the stanza before.

”The poem has no regular rhythm or rhyme scheme. The only rhyme within the poem is in the last stanza with the words “admire” and “fire”. Why
are these the only lines to rhyme?
There is internal rhyme within the first line of stanza 5 with the words “look” and “cook” – what effect does this add to this particular line?

The poem is written in free verse, which suits the conversational nature of the poem, flitting from one memory to another.  Enjambment is used
frequently to replicate the free flowing consciousness of Walker’s memories (eg 4th stanza); other thoughts are more interrupted by  punctuation
e.g. in the 2nd stanza “He taught me how. / This is the form, / he must have said:” – How do these effect the flow of the poem? Are certain lines
emphasized because of this?
Overall, the poem moves from her birth in 1st stanza to the present (at 39) in final. The poem could also be said to replicate the grieving process
as the beginning explores the mourning process where as the latter half moves on to acceptance and hopefulness.
 Whilst Section A of the Paper 1 exam is
on an unseen poem, Section B will
focus on the poems within your
anthology. You will be asked to
compare two specific poems

OR

One specific poem and one other

poem of your choice from the
anthology.

In order to pre-empt what 2 specific poems might be chosen together in Q2 or to help you
quickly select another poem to compare with the named poem in Q3 we need to be able to draw
on thematic links and images between the poems in anthology. Complete the Poetry Analysis
table – having all of you notes together in one place should allow you to this with ease.
Based on your knowledge of the 5 poems you have studied so far (‘Blessing’, ‘Hide and Seek’, ‘Half-Past
Two’, ‘Piano’ and ‘Poem at Thirty-Nine’) what poems do you think might be partnered together? In
pairs come up you own exam style comparison question similar to the ones show above.
 chosen exam style comparison question to
be written here
For homework you need to complete 2 PEACE paragraphs which respond to
the above question. Use your poetry comparison tables to assist you.
POINT Topic sentence which answers the question.

EVIDENCE A quotation from the text written inside single ‘quotation marks’

ANALYSIS Explanation of what image the language creates or what it suggests about what
is being described. Identify language techniques.
CLOSE ANALYSIS Zooms in on a particular word and considers the connotations and alternate
interpretations
EFFECT on the Explains the effect on the reader- what they imagine, if they have an emotional
response, if it makes them consider something or wonder about something.
reader
Need Help? Look back at the comparative PEACE paragraph example for
‘Piano’ and ‘Half Past Two’ from last lesson.