Poem for my Mother Poem for my Mother That isn’t everything, you said on the afternoon i brought the poem to you hunched over the washtub with you hands the shrivelled burnt granadilla skin of your hands covered by foam. and my words slid like a ball of hard blue soap into the tub to be grabbed and used by you to rub the clothes a poem isn’t all there is to life, you said with your blue-ringed gaze scanning the page once looking over my shoulder and back at the immediate dirty water and my words being clenched smaller and smaller. Jennifer Davids XXX Poem for my mother by Jennifer Davids This poem describes a tender moment between the mother and her daughter. Yet despite the closeness of their relationship there’s a constant awareness that in sophistication and in a mere approach to creativity there is a huge gap between the two of them. It leaves me to wonderding why there is that gap. The poem opens with the mother’s response to the poem of the title . In a sense her response is surprising as it seems a harsh rejection of the poem and the child’s gesture of having written a poem for the mother. Her response immediately shows that the mother is a practical person, possibly she has no appreciation for poetry at all. Later she declares that a poem isn’t all there is to life but it suggests that she could have been irritated not having any time for such things as creative writing and emotional sensitive expression. There different point of views are highlighted in contrasts such as “your hands” “my words”. The speaker is aware of the way the mother has to work. She describes her as hunched suggesting that she has had to spend a great deal of time washing and her hands have “shrivelled burnt grenadella skin”. This description of her hands emphasises her age and the harsh effects of long years of washing using the hard soap. This could be why a poem means so little to the mother. It is far from her own experience and her life. She is practical and hard working. Her life is one of physical hard labour, soap and foam and rubbing clothes . The speaker has written a poem something more
use it; Mother is rubbing away / diminishing her poems 4.2 Very different to daughter's; can't survive on poetry. Practical woman, earthbound 5.1 Small / short stanza, just as she feels words are being silenced / squeezed into nothingness 5.2 Disappointment, deflation That isn't everything, you said on the afternoon i brought the poem to you hunched over the washtub "isn't everything" - _________ isn't important or has meaning "hunched" - washing is a task she _________ not _________ enjoy with you hands the shrivelled burnt granadilla skin of your hands covered by foam. shrivelled burtn granadilla skin" - metaphor - hand have been _________ in water for a very long time, skin is _________ and purple Contrast between _________ and daughter: daughter is _________, mother not. and my words slid like a ball of hard blue soap into the tub to be grabbed and used by you to rub the clothes poem becomes ball of soap: poem has been _________ to nothing more than _________, which dissolves in water "grabbed" "used" - mother's _________ attitude to girl's poem a poem isn't all there is to life, you said with your blue-ringed gaze scanning the page once looking over my shoulder and back at the immediate dirty water Repetition - "a poem isn't all" emphasises mother's _________ towards daughter's creative efforts "blue-ringed" - tired and _________ and my words being clenched smaller and smaller. "and my words" - poem _________ to nothing by mother's attitude, becomes more meaningless as soap becomes smaller. "smaller" - last line - creates _________ effect Form: conversational Mother's attitude: _________- grabbed, used, scanning. Daughter's attitude: _________ slid, clenched, smaller