it was very sad the day we heard that dad would die but it was
also fun because all my friends came over and we went driving
in the blue Toyota that kelly’s sister terry drove
and i was the center of attention
it was a day like a movie of the week
my dad is buried in kelowna with a great view of the golf
course especially chosen for him by the graveyard worker who
knew his voice from the radio
my brother has been running from my father to the Father for
almost half our lives but i am on the honour roll and that’s
a great relief once my dad cried and said he loved me
on a good day i believe that’s true
the last time we got drunk together i was 17 and dad took me
to big white i met this one legged vietnam vet there for
the slalom exhibition we left about 1 am dad in his shit
kickers down the fresh snow incline and he wipe out so i
went behind to catch
all 205 lbs if he fell again and i wiped out taking him with me
he said i won’t tell mom if you don’t
the next day his bones sure hurt
we often laugh about that
like the time when he almost died in calgary instead of
kelowna
mj racing to the rockyview dad hanging out the window trying
to breathe
and liz in the back seat says big poppa i had to go to
emergency when i got a pussy willow up my nose
The poet recalls the day she heard her father would die.
- Why do you think this poem is titled “a good day” though it’s about a sad experience? What does this suggest to you?
- What is the overall tone of this poem? (Funny, sad, ironic, heart-broken, resigned, nostalgic?) Does the poem strike one tone, change tones, or pirouette back and forth?
- What’s the relationship of what the poem says to what it is? For example, “a good day” is a free verse poem with long lines, little punctuation and capitalization, composed in conversational language. Why did the poet make these choices? How do content and form work together?
- What do you think the father-daughter relationship is like? What images, words and other impressions make you think this? The title of the poem repeats in the third stanza. What’s the effect of that repetition?
- The way a poem begins and the way it ends is of vital importance. Read “a good day” out loud, paying attention to how the poet draws readers in, and how she ends.
- Write a poem that emulates “a good day”: the length of the lines, the caesura – white space in the middle of a line - the stanza breaks, with little punctuation or capitalization. Notice how a poet’s choices have certain effects. Reformat your poem into 4-line stanzas with punctuation and capitals to see how this changes it.
Useful links:
Check out this interview with Nancy Jo Cullen for her thoughts about poetry as a conversation - and for a poem in which her Dad appears (from Nothing Will Save Your Life, her fourth collection): https://alllitup.ca/try-poetry-nothing-will-save-your-life-nancy-jo-cul…
Read this article to find out more about the poet’s formative influences, and for clues about how to read “a good day”: https://open-book.ca/News/One-Long-Confession-Nancy-Jo-Cullen-on-Auden-Endings-Midsomer-Murders
Learn more about Nancy Jo Cullen’s background, and how her writing was affected by her father’s death when she was 20: https://www.cbc.ca/books/nancy-jo-cullen-muses-on-mortality-in-poetry-c…
Nancy Jo Cullen's "a good day" Copyright © 2002 by Nancy Jo Cullen.
Source "a good day" from Science Fiction Saints (Frontenac House, 2002). Reprinted by permission of the publisher.