The internet has no shortage of warm, fuzzy Father’s Day cards, memes and messages celebrating great dads. But let’s be honest—our feelings about our dads aren’t always all flowers and teddy bears and references to fishing. For those of us who don’t have the best relationships with our fathers, I’ve rounded up a few classic poems depicting less-than-perfect paternal units as a reminder that not all dads are the best around, and Father’s Day can be complicated.
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“Daddy” – Sylvia Plath
Soooo I can’t decide if I should start my Father’s Day card with “Daddy, I have had to kill you. / You died before I had time” or close it with “Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through.”—or both! Plath’s speaker battles with an omnipresent, tyrannical, pretty terrifying Daddy figure. She compares her relationship with her father’s memory to that of the Jews to the Nazis (a move which has received lots of criticism, for good reason), and to her romantic relationship with a male partner (“I made a model of you, / A man in black with a Meinkampf look”). From Robert Phillips’ 1972 review: “When [the speaker] drives the stake through her father’s heart, she not only is exorcising the demon of her father’s memory, but metaphorically is killing her husband and all men.” Happy Father’s Day! Continue reading
