Ah, fathers. Umberto Eco once wisely noted that “what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when they aren’t trying to teach us. We are formed by little scraps of wisdom.” With that in mind, below we share some of favorite poems and stories that highlight our relationships with our fathers, in all their sublime, instructive, complex, grief-filled, and joyful moments.
Gbenga Adesina
Across the Sea: A Sequence
2020 Narrative Prize Winner
Your father has gone on a brief death.
Ann Marie Bausch
Carry Me Back
Michael gave up all pretense of liking his stepdaughter.
Andre Dubus
A Father’s Story
She told it in bursts, like she was a child again.
Carlina Duan
Rein
I love, I love I love my old man.
Louise Glück
Terminal Resemblance
2020 Nobel Prize in Literature
My father and I avoided being alone.
Donald Hall
Reading His Poetry
I woke with my father’s voice in my ear.
Maria Hummel
A Husband and Father
I was six when my father left to serve our country.
Viet Thanh Nguyen
Someone Else Besides You
2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
She was the first of my father’s mistresses that I’d seen.
Benjamin Alire Sáenz
Confessions: My Father, Hummingbirds, and Frantz Fanon
My father was trying to memorize the clouds before he died.
