Critical assignment

errance Hayes seems to have many themes running through his book Lighthead. One of the themes that I noticed was parenting. He mentions his stepfather many times. Two poems where I noticed this the most were “Three Measures of Time” and “Lightheads Guide to Parenting”. “Three Measures of Time” is a poem that takes you through an instance in the day through perspectives of his brother, father and mother. “Lighthead’s Guide to Parenting” seems to outline ideas that he had about parenting based on experiences in his childhood. In both poems, some clues gave me the idea that his father was not very involved in his life. “By the time the coals die down/ you’re asleep before the whispering TV. / No such thing as darkening”. This line from “Three Measures of Time” suggests that his father did not interact much with the children. Also, in “Lighthead’s Guide to Parenting” a similar quote, “a father to slump black and whipped on a big couch. Come darlings, unstring my boots”, gives you the same separated feeling. Although it seems that he may be tired from a hard days work supporting the family, the fact that it is mentioned twice makes it seem like it is a big deal to the speaker in the poem. Another theme about parenting that I noticed was that he seemed to be closer to his mother. In the poem “Three Measures of Time”, Hayes attitude towards his mother seems thankful and understanding. He claims that his mother tells time by “You are in a kitchen with a spatula/ above something inedible or inevitable/ darkening or you are asleep/ in a locked room”. To me it seems like the mother is providing food and life for the family. Hayes would be closer hi mother since she is biological. It seems he knows how hard she works so that they can have food, but she is still not prominent in his life. In “Lighthead’s Guide to parenting” it suggests that his parents were not very good parents. For someone to write a poem like this is seems that they must have some conflicting thoughts how he was raised and how he should have been raised. “Therefore I suggest corporal punishment as a way to establish the boundaries between youth and adulthood… If you are disciplined with your discipline, he or she will love you”. This quote seems to say that his childhood lacked discipline. He seems to wish that that there was more structure in his raising because he writes multiple times about the distance between himself and his parents.