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Analyze the poem "Heaven, 1963" by Kim Noriega.
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The poem "Heaven, 1963" by Kim Noriega reflects on a nostalgic and "heavenly" moment captured in a photograph of the speaker and her father. It contrasts the innocence and safety of that time with the later destructive effects of alcohol on her father, who became verbally and physically abusive. Through vivid imagery and symbolism, the poem explores themes of lost innocence and transformation, highlighting the heartbreaking change from a nurturing relationship to one marred by violence.
Kim Noriega's "Heaven, 1963" is a free-verse poem of eighteen lines, divided into three stanzas of eight, five, and five lines. The poem begins with an old black and white photograph captioned "Daddy and his Sweetheart." The fourth line then announces that this was a time "before Pabst Blue Ribbon," the explosive "b" sounds of the phrase breaking through the nostalgia. A blue ribbon is a symbol of high quality. The French "cordon bleu" still has this connotation, but Pabst Blue Ribbon is a cheap beer, generally consumed for alcohol rather than taste. The beer made her father verbally violent—"his tongue became a knife"—and even physically violent. The reference to the speaker's blackened eye and suicide attempt at the end of the stanza clearly indicate a deeply troubled background, fueled by alcohol and violence.
The second stanza returns to the photograph. Her father is standing beneath an old chestnut...
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tree, wearing a tricolon of
sunglasses,
a light cotton shirt,
and a dreamy expression.
In "Heaven, 1963," the speaker is an adult who looks back with fondness on a happier, "heavenly" time with her father when she was a young girl. The poet uses metaphors, symbolism, and imagery to convey a poignant tone.
This picture was taken in the "before" time—before Pabst Blue Ribbon transformed her father into a different man. The later version of her father was verbally abusive to her mother, the metaphor of his tongue becoming a knife that caused her mother to bleed. This conveys that his words were cutting and damaging, and life seeped out of her mother when he verbally attacked her.
In the photo, her father stands under a chestnut tree, which is often a symbol of honesty and justice. In this time, her father was a good man, facing the camera with a dreamy expression, connoting his goals for being a better man and better father in his younger years.
The speaker is asleep in her father's arms in the picture, symbolizing a sense of complete trust and safety in this warm and nurturing relationship.
Yet the alcohol changed him, and the imagery of the speaker's blackened eye in later years stands in sharp contrast to the innocent baby curls in the photo. The injury came at the hands of her father, the same hands that once cradled her protectively. No longer does she enjoy the comfort of a father in a "light cotton shirt," the wholesome image from her childhood lost. As she considers the transformation, the speaker conveys her sense of remorse at all that has been lost.