The Mother Essay Gwendolyn Brooks Essay

Poem: The Mother
By Gwendolyn Brooks
Abortions will not let you forget.
You remember the children you got that you did not get,
The damp small pulps with a little or with no hair,
The singers and workers that never handled the air.
You will never neglect or beat
Them, or silence or buy with a sweet.
You will never wind up the sucking-thumb
Or scuttle off ghosts that come.
You will never leave them, controlling your luscious sigh,
Return for a snack of them, with gobbling mother-eye.
I have heard in the voices of the wind the voices of my dim killed children.
I have contracted. I have eased
My dim dears at the breasts they could never suck.
I have said, Sweets, if I sinned, if I seized
Your luck
And your lives from your unfinished reach,
If I stole your births and your names,
Your straight baby tears and your games,
Your stilted or lovely loves, your tumults, your marriages, aches, and your deaths,
If I poisoned the beginnings of your breaths,
Believe that even in my deliberateness I was not deliberate.
Though why should I whine,
Whine that the crime was other than mine?—
Since anyhow you are dead.
Or rather, or instead,
You were never made.
But that too, I am afraid,
Is faulty: oh, what shall I say, how is the truth to be said?
You were born, you had body, you died.
It is just that you never giggled or planned or cried.
Believe me, I loved you all.
Believe me, I knew you, though faintly, and I loved, I loved you
All.
Instructions
1.Explain its literal meaning.
2. Identify the following: what is the subject of the poem? Who is the speaker (or persona?), and
whom is the speaker addressing, if anyone?
3. Consider the title of the poem carefully. What does it tell you about the poem\'s subject, tone,
and genre? What does it promise?
4. What is the tone of the poem? Is it melancholy, humorous, nostalgic? What details of the
poem help to establish how the poet feels about the subject?
5. How does the poet use imagery within the poem? Highlight specific areas where the poet uses
imagery to create the mood or meaning of the poem.
6. What tangible objects in the poem might be interpreted as symbols? What might these symbols
represent, what leads you to believe that? How do these symbols contribute to the overall
meaning of the poem?
7. Does the poet use figurative language within the poem, and to what effect? Highlight any
metaphors or similes that you can find.
8. Consider biographical information on the poet\'s life. Is this relevant to your reading of the
poem?
9. What is your overall interpretation of the meaning of the poem? What work is it doing? What
effect is it meant to have on the reader? Why did the poet write this poem? You can approach
the meaning of a poem by investigating any of these questions.