To a Sad Daughter

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To a Sad Daughter A poem by Michael Ondaatje To a sad daughter is a poem in which the father is trying to create a steady relationship and find a common ground with his daughter through a variety of different ways. The daughter is growing up, therefore is ignorant towards her father and is more focussed on how she feels personally. The father doesn’t understand the feelings of his daughter although he tries his best to maintain it. Eventually the daughters feelings run to deep as she decides too take her own life. Some insights and ideas that I have are that while there have been countless father-daughter poems written over the decades, not many include hockey goalies, purple moods, and Creatures From the Black Lagoon. I liked the casual formality and tone of the poem. It made the messages and phrases more clear as I was reading it, and helped me to understand what the author was trying to say. Another insight I have is that this poem has a lot of messages behind it. One of the most important ones is that as a dad, you love your children no matter what. Even if they turn out contrary to what you expected, they’re still special and you’re still proud of them. Another message is that every one deserves a chance to be happy, whatever their definition of happiness may be. We all have different wants and desires, and we all will take different paths to get there. It’s important to look at the people around us and try and see the world through their eyes, because underneath it all, they want to be happy too. Finally, the most important message in the poem is that we need to make our own choices in life, and trust our own judgement. We should not give in to what others tell us to do. If we are going to be foolish, we need to be foolish and make mistakes on our own terms, not someone else’s. We need to have the right knowledge and judgement to make these decisions on

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