Just like the father tries to redeem himself in the poem, Komunyakaa has stubborn hope for America as he tries to redeem it from the violence of the country 's history. The title of the poem immediately lends itself to the ambiguous, and contrasting style between tenderness and brutality. The term “love letters” has connotations of tenderness, adoration, loyalty, deep, soft feelings of warmth and goodness of human nature. But as seen throughout the poem, the father is a desperate, depressed man who is more accurately described as pleading for his wife’s return. In the letters, the father would “beg, / Promising to never beat her / Again.” (lines 7-9). Komunyakaa uses the term “love letter” as a foil to enhance the contrasting emotions that come out in the poem. The technique of putting contrasting objects side by side vividly brings out differences, and the specific title Komunyakaa chose enhances the anguish of the father. This particular style also carries into the poem when Komunyakaa describes to father. He doesn’t use a laundry list of adjectives to characterize the man. Instead, he paints of picture of him through vivid, opposing, and incongruous imagery. The father’s carpenter
Just like the father tries to redeem himself in the poem, Komunyakaa has stubborn hope for America as he tries to redeem it from the violence of the country 's history. The title of the poem immediately lends itself to the ambiguous, and contrasting style between tenderness and brutality. The term “love letters” has connotations of tenderness, adoration, loyalty, deep, soft feelings of warmth and goodness of human nature. But as seen throughout the poem, the father is a desperate, depressed man who is more accurately described as pleading for his wife’s return. In the letters, the father would “beg, / Promising to never beat her / Again.” (lines 7-9). Komunyakaa uses the term “love letter” as a foil to enhance the contrasting emotions that come out in the poem. The technique of putting contrasting objects side by side vividly brings out differences, and the specific title Komunyakaa chose enhances the anguish of the father. This particular style also carries into the poem when Komunyakaa describes to father. He doesn’t use a laundry list of adjectives to characterize the man. Instead, he paints of picture of him through vivid, opposing, and incongruous imagery. The father’s carpenter