Families Values in Knoxville, Tennessee, Those Winter Sundays, and Two Kinds :: Two Kinds, Amy Tan

Family. What do you think of when you hear that word? Some people think of relatives or the people that they live with. Maybe a stepfather, stepmother, brothers, or sisters. To me, family is love, devotion, and caring. People of a family want to be together and love to do things for each other, such as do the dishes or wash the car for them. The poems that most represent my family values are â€Å"Knoxville, Tennessee† by Nikki Giovanni and â€Å"Those Winter Sundays† by Robert Hayden. The one that does not represent my family as much as the others is â€Å"Two Kinds† by Amy Tan. I love the poem â€Å"Knoxville, Tennessee† by Nikki Giovanni. It gives me a sense of people wanting to be together, family, wanting to be together. Giovanni wrote this poem so that it is told through a child (under the age of ten). The child’s world is made up of his or her family. He or she is mostly with the family â€Å"at the church picnic† (Giovanni 50, line 12) or â€Å"at the church / homecoming† (Giovanni 50, lines17-18). The child goes places with the family and is with them all of the time. He or she has not reached the teenage stage of rebellion and does not mind being with his or her parents. That is why I like this poem. It shows love for family through the uncontaminated eyes of a child. â€Å"Those Winter Sundays† represents family devotion to me. The father in the poem is so devoted to his family that he gets â€Å"up early / and put his clothes on in the blueback cold† (Hayden 51, lines 1-2) to warm the house for them. He does not care about anything except driving the cold away for his family. That is the kind of thing that is done out of true, deep, unconditional love. Families stick together and support each other, even if one is not so kind, like the teenager who fears â€Å"the chronic angers of the house† (Hayden 51, line 9). Families forgive, forget, and keep loving each other. â€Å"Two Kinds† is a story that does not represent my idea of family. The young daughter (Tan) does not obey her mother and continually disappoints her. Her mother wants her to learn piano and believes that she has talent, but Tan does not agree. â€Å"Unlike my mother, I did not believe that I could be anything.