What is Poem at Thirty-Nine mainly about?

A daughter remembering her dead father and what he taught her

How did the speaker come to see writing cheques and saving money?

As a way to escape the hard life her father knew

Poem at Thirty-Nine by Alice Walker: context, form and key methods

An adult daughter misses her dead father, remembers what he taught her, and sees him living on in herself. This poem is in copyright, so it is described mainly in our own words.

International GCSE · 4ET1 · Paper 1 Section B: Anthology Poetry
About 18 minutes

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Context and themes

Alice Walker was born in 1944 in Georgia, in the southern United States, to a family of sharecroppers (farm workers who rented land and paid with part of their crop). She won the Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Color Purple.
The title suggests a moment of looking back from the middle of life.
Themes: a daughter's love for her father; memory and grief; inheritance (what parents pass on); honesty; independence; becoming yourself.

Form and structure

Free verse with very short lines, some only a word or two long. This makes the poem feel personal, conversational and thoughtful, as if she is remembering as she writes.
The poem moves from missing him, through specific memories of what he taught her (money, honesty, cooking), to the present, where she recognises him in herself, and ends by imagining how he would see her now.

Language and key methods

Repetition: the line "How I miss my father" opens the poem and returns later, like a refrain of grief.
Concrete, everyday memories: writing cheques and paying in money, which she came to see as a way out of the hard life he knew; learning that being honest would not always get her punished.
Simile and sensuous language for cooking: he cooked as if dancing in a meditation, and loved sharing good food.
Shift to the present: she now looks and cooks like him, cooking freely and never doing things exactly the same way twice.
Ending: a list of her everyday activities, from writing to chopping wood, shows the independent woman she has become, one she believes he would have admired.

Compare with: Piano and If-

Piano (Lawrence): both are adults remembering a parent. Lawrence is overwhelmed and weeps; Walker is grateful and finds her father living on in herself.
If- (Kipling): both are about what fathers teach. Kipling's father gives rules for the future; Walker's lessons are remembered through small, real moments.

Exam tips

Paper 1 Section B gives you a choice of two questions. One question usually names both poems; the other names one poem and asks you to choose a second from the anthology (30 marks: AO2 15 for language, form and structure; AO3 15 for links between the poems).
Strong points for Poem at Thirty-Nine: the short free verse lines and conversational voice; the specific memories that make love concrete; the move from grief to recognition and pride.
This poem is in copyright, so describe the memories in your own words and quote only short phrases from your anthology.

Worked example

Plan a comparison: how do Walker and Kipling present what children learn from their fathers?

Point 1 (ideas): Kipling's father lists qualities for the future; Walker's daughter remembers lessons from the past.
Point 2 (language): Kipling's personified Triumph and Disaster; Walker's everyday details of cheques and cooking.
Point 3 (form): Kipling's single, regular sentence; Walker's loose free verse.
Judgement: Kipling shows advice being given; Walker shows advice being lived.

Answer: Both poems show the lessons a father passes on, but from opposite ends of life. Kipling's father speaks in confident conditions about the man his son could become, in a regular, controlled form. Walker's speaker looks back after her father's death; her short free verse lines and memories of writing cheques and cooking make his lessons feel real and personal. Kipling shows advice being given, while Walker shows that advice living on in "the woman I've become".

Key idea

Walker, born 1944 in Georgia, USA; The Color Purple. Free verse, short lines. Refrain "How I miss my father"; memories of money, honesty and cooking; she now looks and cooks like him; ending imagines him admiring "the woman I've become". Themes: grief, inheritance, independence.

Key words

Context: The circumstances in which a text was written and set, such as historical events, social attitudes and the writer's life (AO3 in the GCSE, AO4 in the International GCSE).
Form: The type and shape of a text: for example sonnet, ballad, free verse, tragedy, comedy, novel or play.
Free verse: Poetry without a regular rhyme scheme or metre.
Refrain: A line or phrase repeated at intervals through a poem or song.
Simile: A comparison using 'like' or 'as'.
Anthology: A published collection of poems or texts. Edexcel GCSE students study one of four poetry collections in the Pearson anthology.

All GCSE and International GCSE English Literature key terms and definitions →

Common mistakes

Not “A woman's first day at a new job”. Work is not the subject; her father is.
Not “A mother giving advice to her son”. The speaker is a daughter remembering her father.
Not “A wedding anniversary”. The poem is about a parent, not a marriage.
Not “A Petrarchan sonnet”. The poem has no fixed line count or rhyme.

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Sources and references

Pearson Edexcel International GCSE English Literature (4ET1) specification, topic Paper 1 Section B: Anthology Poetry

Last updated 6 November 2026. Spotted a mistake? Tell us and we will fix it.