Blog Post # 3- Gwendolyn Brooks "the mother"

 

Gwendolyn Brooks

"the mother"

 

The poem "the mother" by Gwendolyn Brooks is a powerful and meaningful one. It is one of my favorites because it shows how abortions are not a simple thing, a lot of thought and emotion goes into the decision to get one, and it sticks with you forever. Abortion is a very touchy and long debated subject which usually consists of pro or against. I think this poem is a good representation of the side is not often considered- the mother, and how she feels about it; Her side. Although I have never personally experienced this, I know a few people who have and I know it was not easy, nor is it any easier for them now. It stays with them, just like the poem illustrates;
"Abortions will not let you forget
You remember the children you got that you did not get"
 I like how in the poem she used jobs and examples as a way to express the significance of someone who was supposed to be born, not being born;
"the singers and workers that never handled the air"
 This makes me think about children who were not born and it makes me ask, "Who would that child have become?"
This poem is very sad, especially to mothers everywhere, whether they have experience this or not. When having a child, the thought and stereotype behind it is that a mother feels overjoyed and overpowered with love for her child. A mother nurtures, protects, has unconditional love, and would do anything for her child. Every moment is cherished, even small ones most people do not think about until they experience it. The poem has a sad tone relating to this when she talks about what the mother who aborts her child will not be able to do, examples she uses is silencing them, or "buy them with a sweet" or get rid of ghosts for them. I like how in the poem she does not refer to her unborn child as an "it", or "I would have had a baby", (which I have heard many times before). They are referred to as children, for example,
"I have heard in the voices of the wind the voices of my dim killed children". Although unborn, they are all around.
My favorite part of them poem is this;
"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 poisened the begininning of your breaths,
Believe that even in my deliberateness I was not deliberate."
She feels and knows she took all of these things away from her children, including their birth, death and everything inbetween. My favorite line, that which is bolded, says so much that I think most woman who have gone through this can relate to. She knew what she was doing, it was her decision and although unfair that life and life experiences have been taken away from her children (which I am assuming the woman from the poem aborted more than one from the line "Believe me, I loved you all") but, it was not what she wanted. Her goal and point was not to just take this away from them because she could and because she did not want them to have these experiences. She admits through out the poem and through examples that although she has done this thing, they were real and they were loved.
Another part of the poem that I found to be significant was;
"You were born, you had body, you died
It is just that you never giggled or planned or cried".
A lot of people say that when an abortion is had that the growing life inside was not techinically a child yet and that it is not really taking away a human life. I think that Gwendolyn Brooks did a very good job at potraying a woman who has gone through this, how a mom would feel. I think a big point of the poem is that although the children are not alive and did not live, did not laugh, and was never able to cry, they live in memory through their mothers.