“Father”

Melissa Leaf Nelson created “Father” from A Lantern in Her Hand by Bess Streeter Aldrich (1928). Please click here to read.

About the poem and the process of composing it, Melissa Leaf Nelson writes:

A Lantern in Her Hand was one of my favorite novels in high school. I’ve probably read it half a dozen times. My process in writing this poem was to start with absolutely no direction in mind and to use only the author’s words from the first two pages of Chapter I and the last two pages of Chapter XXXVI to see what would unfold. I wrote down words I liked, but had no idea where it was going until I read the phrase “her father who had died.” That immediately guided me through the rest of the text as I selected words and phrases that reminded me of my dad. Although he’s been gone for 17 years tomorrow (as of this writing), he came back to me as I found this poem. As ever.