Daddy

I think my Creative Writing professor wanted to read this poem and find something reminiscent of Sylvia Plath's "Daddy" poem. This was the first poem I turned in (the one below is the edited and re-written version) but she wrote that the poem was like a Hallmark Card. You may think means that she liked it. In fact, that is an insult in the creative writing world. I think it also led to her having a preconceived idea about me the whole semester. She was surprised when I turned out some things and answered certain questions. Her tone said "Emily? That must have been pure luck!" I had never actually had a professor think this way of me. Usually in every class from Brit Lit to English 2, History, Sociology, Government, even Algebra I had my work held up as an example. It could be embarrassing, but if was also affirming. So, I worked hard in Creative Writing (and all the other classes too, hard work got the "A's") and I think it paid off in my writing. It still wasn't what she wanted, which I think was what fell within what was popular in Creative Writing at the time(there should not be trends in Creative writing!) But she did like a couple of lines (which happened to be some of my favorite)and I have kept those in this version of the poem.

DADDY

Your green eyes laugh
For your number one girl
And she wants to be like you,
Spitting sunflower seeds
Like a machine gun
In her best daddy fashion.

I put my soft child hand
Into your rough and hard-worked ones
And trust that life is certain.
I'll wrestle your muscled arm down
White where the sun has not browned
You. And I'll keep you there forever.

We played the "get-away-game"*
You holding me tight,
I would loosen your grip
Trying to see who was strongest
You always won, but our delighted fun
Was that I could never really get away.

-Emily Chumchal Andrews

*The Get-Away-Game is an actual game that my dad and brother and I made up. The object was to "get away" from my dad. We had to be able to unloose his hands and legs and run away. He would hold us by his legs, we would wriggle out, think we were home free and he would grab us by the ankles. Or unhinge his hands and then get caught between his legs and so on.