Alice Walker Poem at Thirty Nine

Stanza 5
Now I look and cook just like him: my brain light; tossing this and that into the pot; seasoning none of my life the same way twice; happy to feed whoever strays my way.
• The speaker sees she is like her father (good or bad?) but suggests that has made her life quite random.
• Maybe when she does something that he did, such as cook she wonders about their relationship.
• Walker uses a clear metaphor in the 5th stanza, comparing the living of her life to the act of cooking. She specifically talks about "seasoning none of my life the same way twice." She is talking about adding interest and enhancement to her food by adding salt, pepper, and any other number of flavourings, but is suggesting that she has done a great variety of things in her life to make it interesting and unique. She doesn't do the same things over and over again. Ultimately, she thinks her dad would admire what she has done for herself -- she seems proud of the way she has lived her life.

Stanza 6
He would have grown to admire the woman I've become: cooking, writing, chopping wood, staring into the fire.
• She thinks that there might have been a slow process of relationship building.

The structure of this poem is a free verse; therefore it does not have any rhyme pattern. These rhymes add to the free flowing of the poem. Walker writes the poem in free verse so she can revive the feeling with her father any time. The poem is written in free verse so every time when Walker thinks of her father, she can use it to convey herself the habits of her father.