I want to make a short comment about "The Gift" by Li-Young Lee. This was one of my favorite poems that we read. I liked it, especially the last stanza, because it made sense to me and it's an interesting aspect of [I guess you could call it] coping(?) that I've never really thought about before. When I read about the boy's reaction I thought, "Yeah, that's so true!" When you pull out a splinter, you don't curse it and say "I HATE YOU STUPID SPLINTER!" You're more fascinated by it. In fact, the bigger and more painful looking the splinter, the better, because then you have bragging rights...you can say "hey look, this thing was in my HAND!...wHoa..." or at least I do.

I think children especially are more inclined to have that kind of awed reaction, because they are just more curious by nature. It also makes sense that a child would be grateful to have the splinter out of his hand (and therefore kiss his father).

A few people (in class and on the blog) focused on the negative voice of the last stanza. I disagree. I didn’t think it was meant to sound violent or angry, because the speaker’s saying I did not blah blah blah (angry words)… “I did what any child does / when he’s given something to keep. / I kissed my father.” It makes sense doesn’t it?

Kari brought up an interesting point in her post that this stanza could be kind of accusatory towards the wife and perhaps her lack of response. I didn’t think of it this way, and I’m still not sure how convincing this argument is.

I thought the point of the angry words and such in this section of the poem was to contrast and emphasize the boy’s actual response: gratitude…gratitude for his father’s “gift”—the splinter, the relief of pain, and of course (the slightly cheesy) example of tenderness and discipline.

~Kelly Cloward