My+father+thought+it

**“My father thought it...” **
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 The situation in this poem shows the relations between parents and children very differently from “Mother, any distance...” - this time we see the familiar tale of The speaker in the poem (who again may well be the poet himself) has his ear pierced, and earns his father's scorn. But the gesture is half-hearted, the piercing becomes infected and the speaker now thinks he ought to remove the earring “and leave it out”. There are no speech marks but we can suppose that “bloody queer” is what the father said as well as thought. He suggests that his son (we assume from the reaction that the earring wearer is a young man) is “easily...led” with the sarcastic addition that the ring should have been through his nose. (The father does not, perhaps, foresee the time when nose rings, too, will become fashionable for some people.) The speaker in the poem contrasts his timid approach with that of others who pierce their own ears with a needle - he gets help from a friend, and makes a mess of the job.
 * the son's assertion of independence, and
 * the father's disapproval.

The poem expresses the dilemma for the young - the son's attempt to free himself of the values of his parents is not really a discovery of himself. And he is not standing up for some noble principle in which he believes - but he perhaps has to wait until long after he has left home, before he can remove the earring, because to do so is an admission of his mistake in putting it in. The poem is ambiguous in its ending - some readers will see the removal of the ring as a sign of wisdom and maturity; others may regret the way the speaker has become sensible and ready to conform. And the voice at the end is the speaker's own voice, but it seems very much like what his father or mother might have said, once they had realized that the earring was not coming out in a hurry. It may be that, while he sees that he was wrong, he still regrets losing the will to rebel or to find his real self.

Like other “matches” in the book, this is a short poem in a conversational style, but with frequent irregular rhymes. The subject may seem quite a trivial one, but it conceals a more deeply-felt struggle of the young for independence of the common sense and prudence of parents - often felt as negative criticism.
 * In reading the poem, do you take sides? Have you had any experiences like that of the speaker in the poem?
 * Does the young man in the poem come across as a sympathetic rebel-without-a-cause character or does he seem weak and insecure? Or would you describe him in some other way?
 * What is the effect of the poet's wordplay in the poem? (Look at “nerve” and “wept” for instance - can you find other examples of wordplay?)
 * <span style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; font-size: medium; line-height: normal;">The poet describes the decision to take out the earring as a “voice breaking like a tear” and water being released from the ear where it has been trapped. Does this suggest that this is a welcome relief or a regretful acceptance of defeat?
 * <span style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; font-size: medium; line-height: normal;">When the father calls the ring “bloody queer”, do you think he merely means that it is stupid, or is he frightened that it is a sign of effeminacy - as if he worries that his son may be gay? (Queer has often been used as a disapproving term for gay people, though now it is used widely in an ironic or neutral way).