The Mother Poem by Gwendolyn Brooks

The Mother

Rating: 4.0


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.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Kaitlyn Simc 14 November 2007

Abortion is wrong, no matter what. I liked the beginning, but the time I found out that she had an abortion. YUCK. Nice poem, would have been better if she was talking about how disgusting abortion is. I'm glad she felt bad about it. Deserved it.

12 106 Reply
Shelby Alvarez 07 April 2008

IMMATURE COMMENT KAITLYN BUT WHEN CAN WE SAY.....THE POEM WAS WRITTEN SO BEAUTIFULLY...AS A 16 YEAR OLD, READING THIS POEM HAS HELPED ME TO UNDERSTAND ABORTION AND WHY IT IS OFTEN PERCEIVED AS A NEGATIVE THING....BEFORE THIS I WAS FOR ABORTION NO MATTER WHAT, BUT AFTER READING THE POEM I'VE COME TO A SOLID CONCLUSION THAT ABORTION SHOULD NOT HAVE EVEN BEEN LEGALIZED MAY GWENDOLYN'S SOUL REST IN PEACE WISH SHE WAS STILL HERE TO WRITE MORE BEAUTIFUL POETRY ~OUT~

21 48 Reply
Christina Bailey 19 May 2008

Shelby, I think the poem tells us how profoundly impossible it is to understand abortion. She is able to describe to us each paradox involved: from thinking we have the ability to make the decision to the inability to know whether or not it is a child; whether or not anything was created and could have died. It must be that something was created, how else can the speaker be a mother, why would she love something, but still, it is not a child, it is a 'pulp'; we can only get questions we will never be able to answer. Also, Roe v Wade did not legalize abortion, it took that decision-making capability away from the States and made it a Federal decision. You should read the history behind it, it wasn't very good for women when they had to obtain 'back-alley' abortions from 'wayward' doctors or resort to doing it themselves. Plainly, abortion has always been and presumably will always be within the realm of possibilities for pregnant women, the question we can answer is whether or not it can be done safely and if it should be governments' decision. Finally, I am not 'for abortion', I am simply not able to take away the power from any woman regarding her decision (though Brooks tells us you can never really make that decision and understand it) . I would not have an abortion if I found myself in that situation, but I cannot even understand that decision, and I don't and can't judge anyone for what they choose. She will always be a mother though, somehow. I also do not feel that it should be a question that government answers. -Christina

41 12 Reply
CA Giacoma 04 November 2022

Thank you.

0 0
Dunja Kovacevic 19 November 2007

This is a powerful poem about a very difficult topic. To have the courage and the strength to relay a painful experience in such an honest way is so rare. Comments like the last one, are exactly what hinders most people from sharing these darker parts of themselves with other people. No one deserves to be put in that position, and no one deserves to feel that way afterwards. But hey, life is full of tough lessons. Let he who has not sinned cast the first stone, right? Anyways, the poem was moving, and written with a simple eloquence.

17 7 Reply
Rose Marie Juan-austin 15 December 2021

Powerful poem on a very sensitive topic So brilliantly presented and expressed.

2 0 Reply
Dr Antony Theodore 02 November 2020

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. Soo verý true. abortons is a sin against humanity and against your own self. tony

2 4 Reply
Lakshmi priya.G.S 09 January 2019

nice poem i really like it.This poem remembers the love of my mother,

3 0 Reply
Gayatri Phukan 15 December 2018

heart touching poem.thank you

2 0 Reply
Dipti 04 November 2018

This poem touch my heart

2 0 Reply
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