Poetic Appreciation:- Father Returning Home 

 

Q. Answer Read the extract carefully and write an appreciation of the poem considering the following points.

✳️About the poet and the title

✳️The theme

✳️ Poetic style, Language, poetic devices.

✳️ Special feature 

✳️Values 

✳️Your opinion about the poem

‘Father Returning Home’ is the famous poem by Dilip Chitre, taken from 'Traveling in the cage'. He is known as a bilingual poet. He has translated ‘the popular Marathi Abhangas (Spiritual Poem) 'Says Tuka into English. He received the Prestigious Sahitya Akademi Award for his remarkable contribution to poetry as well as to Translation. The present is an autobiographical poem where the poet shows the complete solitude and lethargic life of an old man in modern society by depicting a picture of his father returning home from work. Thus the main theme of the poem is "Man's Isolation from a materialistic man-made World". The poet expressed his feelings for his working father. He realized that his father was neglected and uncared for despite being the lone bread-earner for the family.
Though the poem ‘Father Returning Home’ has autobiographical touch, it goes beyond its autobiographical significance. As is an account of every old man in a suburban area who does hard work for his family but leads a monotonous life where no one to converse with him, understand his feelings, and look after him.
The poem consists of two stanzas of the first stanza 12 lines and the second stanza 13 lines. It is a free verse where there is no rhyme and no rhythm. The poem is very symbolic the very structure of the poem is also symbolic as the lack of rhythm symbolizes that the poet’s father was uncared-for life. The language is easy and simple but full of imagery and symbolism. It is in first person narrative where the poet himself is the speaker who narrates the isolated life and monotonous routine of his father. The prominent figures of speech in the poem are Alliteration, Simile, and Onomatopoeia. The poet expresses his feelings for his old father, but every old father has almost the same condition so we can take the moral from the poem that 'we must look after the elderly members in our family and society' I like the poem very much as it depicts the real picture of monotony and lethargic life of the elderly hard-working person in the modern society.