Although there is little criticism on "His Speed and Strength," several scholars have outlined characteristic themes and issues in Ostriker's poetry. Moreover, Ostriker has written critical books about poetry, which help illuminate her work. Critic Janet Ruth Heller in her essay, "Exploring the Depths of Relationships in Alicia Ostriker's Poetry," analyzes Ostriker's treatment of the "ambivalence" and "tensions in intimate relationships," such as those between men and women or between parents and children. These tensions and divisions are revealed in poems about miscommunication, ambivalence, suppressed anger, invisibility, silence, uncertainty, and duality, particularly within women who are both mothers and writers. In her critical book Stealing the Language: The Emergence of Women's Poetry in America, Ostriker finds these and other recurring images of division in poetry by women from the 1600s to the present. In "His Speed and Strength," the mother recognizes dualistic traits in her son...