Reader:  Anne Vavrin
Respondent:  Jeanette Smith
Recorder:  Jana Jensen 

Shirley Geok-lin Lim,

"Father From Asia"

Biography: Shirley Lim published her first book Malacca Times at the age of ten and at eleven knew she wanted to be a writer.  She was born in Malaysia and had to deal with divorce and the confusion of wanting to keep her roots and wanting to immerge into the Western world.  Her mother abandoned her and her siblings when she was young and she received her name from the young child star Shirley Temple.  Professor Shirley Geok-lin Lim received her Ph.D. in English and American Literature from Brandeis University in 1973. She is currently Chair Professor of English and head of the English Department at the University of Hong Kong, as well as Professor of English and Women's Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her first book of poems, Crossing The Peninsula (Heinemann Press, 1980), won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize.    

http://www.hku.hk/english/staff/sgllim.htm

http://www.gsu.edu/~wwweng/old_news/biography_lim.html

Literary Term:

Tone:  The attitude of the author toward the reader or the subject matter of a literary work.  An author’s tone may be serious, playful, mocking, or angry.  (Bedford, 482). 

The whole poem has an angry tone towards her father and Asia.

Objectives: 

Literary:  Obj. 2a: Narrator or viewpoint

Cultural:  Obj. 2

Interpretation:  Lim begins the poem with images of empty bowls used as a metaphor for her father’s hands.  Lim grew up in poverty and this is a statement of the many times she went without food.  The next image refers to the stigmata which were powerful wounds inflicted on Christ at his Crucifixion.  Lisa Runnels from the spring 2001 class said that Lim uses his to invoke fear and the shame of poverty.  Also, she said it is the anger of poverty.  Lim grew up with the label of being poor and she still has not fully recovered from it.  “For you are dangerous father…”  This line has many ambiguous meanings.  It could mean that the danger of starvation and homelessness was always just around the corner, but also it could be he was violent towards Lim and her siblings.  The “Voices from the Gaps: Women Writer’s of Color Website” says that Lim endured parental violence and she could be speaking literally.  A few lines down, Lim says “Father from Asia, father of sacrifice.”  Lim writes how much they had to sacrifice because he was not there.  Her memory is tarnished because she only remembers the bad and that is unfortunately how many of us recollect events.  The good becomes a distant memory and the bad stabs us like a knife.  “Asia is dust…”  When one passes on they become dust.  Lim says that Asia is dust and she never received a good example of a parental role model, so she says good bye to her homeland. 

Discussion Questions:

1.)    The 11^th line says, “I renounce you, keep you in my sleep…”  What does this mean?  If someone treated you unfairly, why would you want to keep them in your sleep?

2.)    What stages is the narrator experiencing throughout the duration of this poem?

Links: 

http://voices.cla.umn.edu/authors/LIMshirley.html

http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/litlinks/poetry/lim.htm

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1558611797/102-8392599-0013763?v=glance