Poems about fathers and daughters capture these two individuals’ special bond and dynamic. They explore fathers’ unique tenderness, protectiveness, and influence on their daughters’ lives.
The relationship between fathers and daughters becomes a tapestry of love, support, and guidance in these poetic compositions. These poems celebrate the unwavering support, encouragement, and belief in the potential of their daughters that fathers provide.
These verses delve into the shared moments of joy, laughter, and shared dreams between fathers and daughters. Father poems convey the warmth and security of a father’s embrace and the wisdom imparted through gentle guidance.
‘The Machinist, Teaching His Daughter to Play the Piano’ by B.H. Fairchild is a free verse poem about how the creative process can connect a father and daughter.
The brown wrist and hand with its raw knuckles and blue nails
packed with dirt and oil, pause in mid-air,
the fingers arched delicately,
‘Daddy’ by Sylvia Plath uses emotional, and sometimes, painful metaphors to depict the poet’s own opinion of her father.
You do not do, you do not do
Any more, black shoe
In which I have lived like a foot
For thirty years, poor and white,
‘The First Snowfall’ by James Russell Lowe is a deeply sad poem about the death of a child and what it’s like to consider that loss as time passes.
The snow had begun in the gloaming,
And busily all the night
Had been heaping field and highway
With a silence deep and white.
‘The Wreck of the Hesperus’ by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is a narrative poem about a shipwreck and the dangers of pride in an emergency.
It was the schooner Hesperus,
That sailed the wintry sea;
And the skipper had taken his little daughtèr,
To bear him company.
‘Tomorrow, At Dawn’ by Victor Hugo follows the speaker as they journey to the grave of a loved one, capturing all the ways in which grief has become their sole fixation.
Tomorrow, at dawn, at the hour when the countryside whitens,
I will set out. You see, I know that you wait for me.
I will go by the forest, I will go by the mountain.
I can no longer remain far from you.
‘A Prayer for my Daughter’ by William Butler Yeats speaks about the poet’s family. It demonstrates his concern and anxiety over the future wellbeing and prospects of his daughter, Anne.
I have walked and prayed for this young child an hour
And heard the sea-wind scream upon the tower,
And under the arches of the bridge, and scream
In the elms above the flooded stream;
‘Lochinvar’ is a ballad about a young and courageous knight who saves his beloved, the fair lady Ellen, from marrying another man.
O young Lochinvar is come out of the west,
Through all the wide Border his steed was the best;
And save his good broadsword he weapons had none,
He rode all unarm’d, and he rode all alone`
‘Marina’ presents the joy of the spiritual awakening of a lost individual, offering hope to the readers living in a desolate modern world.
What seas what shores what grey rocks and what islands
What water lapping the bow
And scent of pine and the woodthrush singing through the fog
What images return
Amid opulent bills and undersea dreams, Kumin’s ‘Spree’ unveils family conflicts and materialistic illusions with evocative language.
My father paces the upstairs hall
a large confined animal
neither wild nor yet domesticated.
About him hangs the smell of righteous wrath.
‘A Picture of Otto’ by Ted Hughes is addressed to Sylvia Plath’s father, Otto. It contains Hughes’ disagreements about how he and Otto were depicted in Plath’s work.
‘Amateur Fighter’ is a poem about a speaker thinking of her father, a boxer. His painful journey inside and outside the ring is portrayed through this piece.
‘Divorce’ by Jackie Kay is about parent-child relationships and how children are impacted by adults’ issues. The speaker is a teenager who is struggling to contend with her parent’s relationship with one another.
‘For My Daughter’ by Weldon Kees is an interesting poem about a speaker’s thoughts about having a daughter and considering her death.
Looking into my daughter’s eyes I read
Beneath the innocence of morning flesh
Concealed, hintings of death she does not heed.
Coldest of winds have blown this hair, and mesh
In ‘Full Moon and Little Frieda,’ Ted Hughes describes his daughter’s observations of the world around her, reflecting on nature and family.
A cool small evening shrunk to a dog bark and the clank of a bucket -
And you listening.
A spider's web, tense for the dew's touch.
‘Missing My Daughter’ by Stephen Spender is a poem about a speaker’s desire to see his daughter and how he feel trapped in a prison of loneliness.
This wall-paper has lines that rise
Upright like bars, and overhead,
The ceiling's patterned with red roses.
On the wall opposite the bed
‘Poem at Thirty-Nine’ by Alice Walker describes the speaker’s father’s life. She admits how much she misses him and how she wishes he hadn’t had such a hard life.
How i miss my father.
I wish he had not been
so tired
when i was
born
‘Sine Qua Non’ by A.E. Stallings is a thoughtful depiction of what “absence” and “nothing” feel like. The poem is specifically concerned with one speaker’s father.
‘The Moss of His Skin’ by Anne Sexton is an unforgettable poem about a young girl who is buried next to her father.
‘The Myth of Music’ by Rachel M. Harper describes the mythical power of music and its ability convey one’s generational and familial relationships.
‘The Writer’ by Richard Wilbur depicts a father watching his daughter create her first piece of writing. The poet uses clever and creative examples of figurative language in order to depict the struggle new and experienced writers go through.
‘To Her Father with Some Verses’ by Anne Bradstreet expresses the poet’s admiration for her father and desire to pay him back for his support.
Dawn Garisch’s poem ‘To My Father, Who Died’ is about the relationship of the poet’s father with the sea. It depicts the cycle of life and death through the metaphor of the sea.
‘Traveling Light’ by Alice Fulton is a powerful poem that weaves together images of the present and the past. Throughout, readers can explore Fulton’s understanding of her relationship with her father and her current relationship with the landscape around her.
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