LEEterature

Phoebe Pappalardo, Brooke Tolley, and Linnae Medeiros

Background Information

Born in Indonesia – 1957Came to U.S. – 1964Rose – 1986Father’s Death – 1989

Styles and PatternsLiterary Features• Symbolism• Imagery• Personification• Repetition

Themes• Life and Death• Childhood• Father

The Children's Hour Soldiers with guns are at our door again.Sister, quick. Change into a penny.I'll fold you in a handkerchief,put you in my pocketand jump inside a sack,one of the uncooked rice.

Brother, hurry. Turn yourselfinto one of our mother's dollson the living room shelf. I'll be the dustsettling on your eyelids.

The ones wearing wings are in the yard.The ones wearing lightning are in the house.The ones wearing stars and carrying knivesare dividing our futures among them.

Don't answer when they call to us in the voice of Nanny.Don't listen when they promise sugar.Don't come out until evening,or when you hear our mother weeping to herself.

If only I could become the mirror in her purse, I'd never come back until the end of time.

Influences

FatherLoveExile

FamilyReligion

"We suffer each other to have each other a while.”

Little FatherI buried my father I buried my father in my heartin the sky. Now he grows in me, my strange son,Since then, the birds my little root who won’t drink milk, clean and comb him every morning little pale foot sunk in unheard-of night,and pull the blanket up to his chin little clock spring newly wet every night. in the fire, little grape, parent to the future

wine, a son the fruit of his own son,I buried my father underground. little father I ransom with my life.Since then, my ladders only climb down, and all the earth has become a house whose rooms are the hours, whose doors stand open at evening, receiving guest after guest. Sometimes I see past them to the tables spread for a wedding feast.

Criticism

• “Passionate and profound”• “authenticity, mystery, and a quiet mastery of

language”• “blend memory and dream” • “honors the past but, in doing so, risks

postponing the future”• “Tenderness is not enough”

We agree

“blend memory and dream”“Passionate and profound”“authenticity, mystery, and a quiet mastery of language”

We Disagree

“honors the past but, in doing so, risks postponing the future”“Tenderness is not enough”

From Blossoms

From blossoms comes this brown paper bag of peaches we bought from the boy at the bend in the road where we turned toward signs painted Peaches.

From laden boughs, from hands, from sweet fellowship in the bins, comes nectar at the roadside, succulent peaches we devour, dusty skin and all, comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.

O, to take what we love inside, to carry within us an orchard, to eat not only the skin, but the shade, not only the sugar, but the days, to hold the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into the round jubilance of peach.

There are days we live as if death were nowhere in the background; from joy to joy to joy, from wing to wing, from blossom to blossom to impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.