Poem Response

“Mother to Son” is a poem that only has 1 stanza. There are 20 lines in it. This poem shows us how the mother wants to explain to her son how hard is life.

The first impression of the poem to me is that this is a really strong and powerful poem. The mother is telling her son how hard life is like. I can feel the love from the mother to her son. The mother wants to encourage her son that whatever he is going to see in his life, be strong and do not give up. I was always a person who easily to say “I can’t”. Since I read this poem, I learned that I need to be strong and be mature enough to solve every bad thing happened in my life.

I realized things after reading it over many times. First of all, I realized how the poet used “And splinters, And boards torn up, And places with no carpet on the floor-Bare. And turnin’ corners, And sometimes goin’ in the dark.” to make life sounds much rougher. 

There are two things I love about this poem. First of all, I really like how the poet repeats twice the speaker keeps climbing. This really shows us how the mother never gives up even though she sees lots of crucial things happening in her life. This also perfectly lets her son knows that she wants him to a person who never gives up. Second of all, I really love these sentences starts with “And”. These sentences perfectly show how hard and rough life is like. This really shows us that there are always bad things happen in our lives, but we should not give up. I really get encouraged by this poem. 

I have lots of questions about the poem I want to ask the poet. First of all, why doesn’t the mother talk more positive things about life to her son? I personally think that positive things can have better effects on a person rather than negative things. Second of all, why do you use only one stanza in this poem? Third of all, how do you use the punctuation? While I was reading the poem, the punctuation of the poem confused me a lot. Fourth of all, Why do you think life has so many negative things? In my mind, even though there are so many bad things happens in our lives, but I still find them cool and feel my life in a positive way.

All in all, I really love the idea of how the mother wants her son to be a strong person who never gives up when facing bad situations. Also, this poem is a really powerful and encouraging poem to me. I learn a lot of things from this poem.