The mother
by Gwendolyn Brooks
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At a glance:
- Author: Gwendolyn Brooks
- First Published: 1945
- Type of Poem: Lyric
- Genres: Poetry, Lyric poetry
- Subjects: Children, Family or family life, Memory, Mothers, Parents and children, Love or romance, Poverty or poor people, Inner cities or inner-city life, Death or dying, Abortion, Afterlife, Decision making
The Poem
“The mother” is a short poem in free verse, written mostly in the first person. In her narrator, Gwendolyn Brooks adopts the persona of an impoverished mother. In the tradition of the lyric, this narrator addresses the reader directly and personally to convey her feelings. The poem contains thirty-five lines, which are separated into three stanzas. The title, “the mother,” is ironic, for this mother is a woman who has lost her children because of very difficult and painful decisions—decisions that she believes were for the best.
Brooks’s “the...
(The entire page is 1421 words.)
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Popular Questions
See all »- Explain why Gwendolyn Brooks might have used food imagery in the way she did in the poem "The Mother."
- Discuss the structure of Gwendolyn Brooks' poem "The Mother."
- What is the significance of the line, "Believe that even in my deliberateness I was not deliberate," from Brooks' poem "The mother."
- In Gwendolyn Brooks' poem "the mother," he speaker says in line 21, "even in my deliberateness I was not deliberate." What does this mean?
- Most of Gwendolyn Brooks' "The mother" rhymes, but a few lines do not. Why might Brooks have chosen not to rhyme these particular lines?
