Introduction & Overview of To a Sad Daughter by Michael Ondaatje

To a Sad Daughter Introduction

"To a Sad Daughter" appears in Michael Ondaatje's 11th collection of poetry, Secular Love, published in 1984. In "Coming Through: A Review of Secular Love," critic Sam Solecki comments that the poems in this book read "more like the chapters of a novel than parts of a collection." "To a Sad Daughter," however, can easily be pulled from the rest and enjoyed alone, for it encompasses a theme common in many of our lives and presents it in a striking, not-so-common way: a father's love for his daughter and his longing to guide her "into the wild world" (line 64) gently, but with eyes wide open.

While there have been countless father-daughter poems written over the decades, not many include hockey goalies, purple moods, and Creatures From the Black Lagoon. Ondaatje's poetry is rich in all forms of human experience, and his use of everyday language and everyday events...
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