Brett Rutherford's Poem 'All I Know About My Father'

“All I know About My Father” 1989 by Brett Rutherford

This is a poem from the viewpoint of a son reflecting on the relationship or lack thereof with his father. The son reflects on the void, the emptiness of a vacant place at table, which he describes as a self-erasing memory. To me this signifies that he tries to forget the fact that his father was not part of the family but an empty chair at home. The son turns to a memory of his father showing him places on a globe, seeing a scrapbook that his father was not very open with. The picture that stood out in his memory was one of war, where his father had a German medal, his father in uniform with a scenery of tanks and other soldiers. He recalls his fathers jobs including a time where his

He follows with that the memory he has of his father is of a voice who fought with his mother, slept on the couch, and then slept somewhere else. It doesn’t seem the father was part of this son’s life any more after that, until one day when he was 17 he got a call from his dad while at school saying he would meet him. There is hope in the son’s wondering what might his father have to say, what new beginnings…alas his father said to him ‘sign this’. The father wants to cash in an insurance policy that he had on his sons, then speeds off after it is signed, however the son never told anyone. This act is the finality of any hope of a relationship with his

This is a place where if not filled by their father it leaves a wound that is not easily healed. Warren says statistics show that for children who is trying to understand that “it is difficult to be what you don’t see and become what you didn’t have.” The consequences of that hole for men, is more profound. It is difficult for men to express their feelings and to say that they feel a void, a hole because they didn’t have a