To a Daughter Leaving Home by Linda Pastan

Linda Pastan is a Jewish American poet who won the Mademoiselle poetry prize during her senior year in college and after taking a decade off to raise a family, she returned to writing poetry having to do with marriage, family, grief, and other feelings of everyday life.

To a Daughter Leaving Home

When I taught you
at eight to ride
a bicycle, loping along
beside you
as you wobbled away
on two round wheels,
my own mouth rounding
in surprise when you pulled
ahead down the curved
path of the park,
I kept waiting
for the thud
of your crash as I
sprinted to catch up,
while you grew
smaller, more breakable
with distance,
pumping, pumping
for your life, screaming
with laughter,
the hair flapping
behind you like a
handkerchief waving
goodbye.

The context of any poem includes the both the situation and the setting that surround the action. Context answers the "what," "where," and "when" of the poem. The situation of this particular poem, or in other words what is happening, is that a mother or a father (the speaker) is comparing the daughter leaving home to the same daughter learning how to ride a bike when "I taught you at eight to ride a bicycle, loping along beside you." We know, as readers, that the daughter is leaving home based on the title and because of that we can assume that the poem acts almost as an extended metaphor to compare the two experiences in the parent's head. This makes up the situation, but to find the setting took slightly more digging because it is not clearly stated. This vagueness is intentional, however, so that it can be applied universally to anyone who reads it. The setting of this poem is on the surface is "ahead down the curved path of the park" but on the deeper level, this poem is probably set in the family house or something that has the same effect to relate the action back to family and connect with the reader on a personal level. Both the setting and the situation help to develop the tone in the poem. The context provides the reader with clues that hint toward a tone of reminiscence and bitter-sweetness. The mother remembers an old fond memory to try and cope with the new painful memory that is forming.