Alison Joseph (Leaving Cert English): Revision Notes

My Father's Kites

Introduction and context

"My Father's Kites" is part of Alison Joseph's poetry collection My Father's Kites, published by Steel Toe Books in 2010. This collection serves as a tribute to her father, with all poems functioning as a eulogy exploring their complex relationship. Joseph writes about the difficult bond she shared with him, his premature death, and the emotional aftermath she experienced. The poems are crafted as intimate pieces written in free verse, offering her unique perspective as a daughter processing grief and memory.

Summary and themes

Joseph's poem creates a touching narrative about family love and the father-daughter relationship. The work examines her father's unexpected death and the emotional impact that followed. The poem explores her connection with her father through the emotions, feelings and thoughts that emerged after his passing.

The poem carries a strong sense of nostalgia as she reflects on cherished childhood memories. The kites serve as a powerful symbol representing an intimate and meaningful memory from her past. Growing up in a dull and gloomy environment, the flight of the kites provided moments of wonder and inspiration for the young poet. She expresses a longing to soar like a kite and find her place within their family's world.

The poem flows seamlessly without traditional stanza breaks and explores themes of longing, nostalgia, death and liberation.

Detailed analysis

Lines 1-6: The makeshift kites

The poem opens immediately with the title as Joseph describes her father's kites as "crude assemblages of paper sacks and twine". These kites were constructed from basic materials - "amalgams of pilfered string and whittled sticks" and "twigs pulled straight from his garden, dry patch".

This description establishes her father's resourcefulness and creativity in making do with limited resources. The kites weren't shop-bought but were crafted from scraps, possibly because the family couldn't afford to purchase proper ones. The poet describes their front garden as "stony land before our house only he could tend into beauty, thorny roses goaded into colour".

This passage reveals her father's nurturing character and his ability to transform barren, unpromising ground into something beautiful. Just as he transformed the harsh land into a rose garden, he also brought colour and joy into her life. The poet then expresses wonder at "How did he make those makeshift" kites rise into the sky, setting up the central mystery of the poem.

Lines 7-12: Diamond kites and neighbourhood contrast

The kites are described as "diamonds" due to their diamond-like shape, but calling them diamonds also emphasises their precious value to the poet - these memories are treasures to her. Joseph wonders how nothing else in the neighbourhood could "grab ahold of the wind to sail into sky like nothing in our neighbourhood of dented cars and stolid brick houses could".

The neighbourhood is portrayed as having "dented cars and stolid brick houses" - creating a dull and depressing atmosphere where she lived. The contrast between the soaring kites and the grounded, damaged environment emphasises how special these moments were.

The poet explains that her father could make the kites fly not through "faith or belief in otherworldly grace, but rather a metaphor from moving on a street where cars rusted up on blocks". This suggests his ability came from understanding the wind's power in their quiet environment rather than any supernatural force.

Lines 13-18: Movement and flight paths

The cars in the streets remain "monstrously immobile", staying in one place and slowly rusting away. Meanwhile, "planes, bound for that world we could not see, roared above our heads, our houses pawns in a bigger flight path".

This creates a powerful contrast between different types of movement and freedom. The immobile cars represent stagnation, whilst the invisible planes represent a world beyond their reach. Their houses appear tiny and insignificant - mere "pawns" - in the greater flight paths above them.

The poet describes how launching the kites required skill and patience: "How tricky the launch into air, the wait for the right eddy to lift our homemade contraption into the sullen" sky. The sky itself is described as moody and depressing, making the successful flight of the kites even more remarkable.

Lines 19-24: The joy and sadness of flight

When the kites finally soar, there's a moment of pure joy: "blue sky above us, our eyes stinging with the glut of the sun". The poet lifts her head to watch the kites' flight in the sky, but the brightness causes her eyes to water.

However, this joy is followed by disappointment when the kites eventually fall: "And the sad tangle after flight, collapse of grocery bags and broken branches, snaggle of string". When the kites crash down, they lose their magic and become ordinary rubbish again. Their precious nature is lost, turning them into a tangled mess.

As the kites fall apart on the ground, only "broken branches and knotted strings" remain behind. The poet then directly addresses her deceased father: "I still cannot unfurl. Father, you left me with this unsated need to find the most" useful breezes. She cannot untangle the emotional mess he left behind and feels unable to understand her complex feelings about their relationship.

Lines 25-30: Longing for flight and connection

The final section reveals the poet's deep desire: she wants to be "delicately useful of breezes, to send myself into the untenable, balance my weight as if on paper wings, a flutter then fall". She longs to fly like the kites in the wind, to become weightless and experience that brief moment of freedom before returning to earth.

The poet wants to "stutter back to earth, an elastic sense of being and becoming forged in our front yard, your hand over mine over balled string". She yearns to return to their front garden where she felt "forged" or shaped by the experience, with a sense of belonging and connection.

She remembers her father's hands guiding hers as he taught her to fly kites, and she's nostalgic for those precious memories. She misses the sense of home, safety and security that came with having her father present in her life. These memories represent a time when she felt truly connected to her father and understood her place in the world.

About the poet

Alison Joseph (born 1967) is an American contemporary poet based in Carbondale, Illinois, where she teaches in the creative writing faculty at Southern Illinois University. She also serves as editor and poetry editor of Crab Orchard Review.

Joseph uses small independent presses to publish her works, including well-known collections such as Confessions of a Barefaced Woman (Red Hen Press, 2018) and Corporal Muse (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2018). She has received numerous awards and honours, including fellowships from the Bread Loaf and Sewanee Writers' Conferences and from the Illinois Arts Council.

Summary