"the mother," by Gwendolyn Brooks and "She Walks in Beauty," by Lord Byron (George Gordon)
Author: Gwendolyn Brooks and Lord Byron (George Gordon)
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the mother
One of my thoughts when I saw the name was that this was going to of course be about a mother. I was confused on what the mood was going to be because it could’ve been a child talking about their mother.It could’ve also been about a mother talking about her children or life. It could’ve been a happy poem.
Upon first seeing the title, I assumed that it would undoubtedly be about a mother. It might have been a child talking about their mother, so I wasn’t sure what the atmosphere would be like.It might have also been a woman speaking about her kids or life in general. The poetry might have been joyful. https://drivingmad.io
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.
This made me wonder if she had an abortion and if so, what made her abort. She uses the word forget to describe how she can’t forget what she did. She possibly feels guilt or regret.
The speaker is saying how her aborted children will not never get to experience anything, Never be able to do good deeds or bad deeds
An abortion is when a mother choses to kill her unborn child. This is the starting sentence and my first impression of this was that this poem is going to be about an abortion. It makes me interested in the poem.
Abortion is a serious choice parent, or mother makes about having a child. And it either turns out to be the best choice you make or end up regret that choice they made.
I feel like the feelings evoked from abortion and adoption are similar. In the sense that in both situations the mother is longing for the child.
She feels like since she can’t forget her abortion and she is now trying to control the guilt she feels. She says this by saying controlling your luscious sigh which I feel like is saying how she feels sad and her emotions are taking over. For example, the speaker feels like the guilt within her would not leave her alone.
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.
She starts by explaining how she feels about her abortion.Later on she starts speaking to her children saying how she stole their identity. This is the turning point of the poem and it causes a change of tone. The change went from sad to guilt and grieve.
She is now feeling guilt for doing so and it seems like the guilt won’t leave her alone. She describes the guilt as voices that are in her head. The speaker is now feeling regret for aborting and now the guilt is getting to her.
The speaker explains this by saying that she stole something. She is basically saying that she stole their lives and identities by aborting. She uses the word stole to indicate that she feels like she took aways something that wasn’t hers. She says this and is now regretting the choice she made.
She said that she poisoned the beginning of your breaths. The word poisoned indicates that she feels like she ruined something and that she now understands that what she did was wrong. She realizes this and is now apologizing.
She claims that the baby had a body already when she decided to abort. The child was once alive until the speaker aborted. She explains it with commas to show that she regrets it all.
I feel like she is dismissing the fact that the child was conceived. It doesn’t even matter if the child was wanted, but dismissing the fact that the child was made is rude. It shows not
Believe me, I loved you all.
Believe me, I knew you, though faintly, and I loved, I loved you
All.
She chose to abort and is now sorry for doing so. It makes me wonder if she had the decision or if she was forced to. This makes me wonder that because she seems to regret everything and this guilt won’t leave her alone but it seems like she didn’t want to abort.
Gwendolyn Brooks, “the mother” from Selected Poems. Copyright © 1963 by Gwendolyn Brooks. Reprinted with the permission of the Estate of Gwendolyn Brooks. Source: Selected Poems (Harper & Row, 1963)
She Walks in Beauty
by Lord Byron (George Gordon)
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o’er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express,
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!
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