Dear Poet
Dear Ocean Vuong, I must admit, I found your poem, "to my father/to my future son", simply due to a poetry project my AP Literature teacher forced us to do. The task was to heavily analyze and deconstruct a chosen poem then write an essay and present our findings in class. At first glance, the poem felt impossible to deconstruct. So many different elements that we couldn't connect and we didn't know who the poem was addressing half the time. But our group slowly figured it out and realized how it was all connected. The fire, burning, and ashes showing the everlasting effect of trauma on one's self and how the book represented the yearn to impart the knowledge onto future generations to help them not make the same mistakes as us. I felt the sadness and the desperation in the poem and really resonated with how past trauma is not dealt with and passed on to future generations, especially in East Asian and South Asian families like ours. After reading this poem, I ...