Exploring 'Ana'
Beryl Clarke, Contributor

This week we will begin exploring the poem below. It was written by Mark McWatt, a Guyanese educator who heads the department of English at the Cave Hill campus of the University of the West Indies.

'Ana'

While she was yet too young to crawl

my pride would picture her sunlit, outside

playing with flowers

like every poet's child;

5 the frills of her pink dress

waving in the gentlest whim

of her father, observing,

pen in hand, her little gestures

in her world of green.

10 It was a calm and quiet mental scene.

Instead, now,

she leaps at me

off kitchen counters

when my arms and mind are full

15 of other things:

I glimpse the little hands

lunging for my throat,

and in that stiffening split-second

I wish she would miss

20 serve her damn right)

I pray she won't miss

(little monkey)

but infallibly, I feel her hard fingers

her sharp nails

25 in the neutral father-flesh of my neck

and her barbaric howl of delight

stifles my angry shout.

I make to unhorse her with a wild shrug

she thinks it's a game,

30 'Do that again, Daddy',

and like a fool

Daddy does it again.

I've given up the prospect

Of pink dresses and flowers;

35 I let her kick her somersaults

Off my stomach, hardly noticing now

the muddy footprints on my shirts,

the scratches on my arms...

I think I must endure her thorny assaults

40 precisely because they seem

like self-inflected wounds.

And yet when she is curled in sleep,

like a comma,

I can ponder still the possibility

45 of finishing all the stanzas

with images of her calm beauty

-lying so peaceful on the flower-patterned sheet,

all her brutal fangs of life

retracted behind the closed lids.

Mark McWatt

This poem describes the relationship between a father and his young daughter. I am sure that you can identify with the father's attitude as well as recognise the reality of the child's conduct. Please do the following:

• Read the poem several times.
• Consider the meanings of: 'pride would picture her sunlit'; 'in the gentlest whim...'; 'infallibly'; neutral father-flesh'; 'barbaric howl'; 'make to unhorse her'; lines 39 to 41 and the entire last stanza.
• Describe the antics of the child.
• Identify a) what the father hoped for, and b) what he got instead.
• Why does he blame himself for the way his daughter behaves?

When she was very young, he had dreams of a quiet, disciplined and orderly child. As a poet, his imagination conjured up a special picture of his daughter. He saw her as 'playing with flowers', 'wearing frilly pink dresses' and doing exactly those things that please him. Isn't this how many parents think? I hope you notice how he imposes his adult desires of what a child should be on to Ana. He expects her to be undemanding and placid so that he can get on with his business of writing. Even if you cannot remember how you behaved as a toddler, you may have been able to observe how active a younger sibling, niece or nephew can be.

Ana's actions are completely different from the speaker's expectations and although he is disappointed at this and briefly wishes that something bad would happen to her, he makes it obvious that he loves her very much. It is this love that causes him to accept the pain of the scratches she inflicts on him and her surprising leaps on to him. Isn't this also how many parents react?

Yes! I do want you to relate the poem to your knowledge and experience of life and I hope that this will help you to conclude that neither poets nor poetry are alien. The single line, which forms a bridge between stanzas one and two, sums up clearly the fact that the description of a calm Ana is all in the poet/father's mind and has no basis in reality.

I do hope that you will enjoy working on this poem. Keep your focus and God bless!