A Failed Mother

A Failed Mother

She gave birth to her beautiful boy,
Loved him with all of her heart.
Whispered loving, mild words
When he wailed at night.

Time went on and bright emotions left;
Luscious color drained from her hair.
She was so busy with her son,
All of herself was gone.

Solace in religion she soon found.
Prayed day and night to the father.
God never once answered her,
So she gave up on life.

Stole hard whiskey from her husband,
But sold him her body and soul.
This dark void of emotion
Was never once filled.

The fam’ly would ask her “what’s wrong?”
When they sniffed the alcohol.
She didn’t answer their words.
She was too drunk to hear.

This fam’ly found her in the bathtub,
A hairdryer in the water.
They suspected this event,
But not it happening

The funeral service was quiet.
It was hard to say a single word.
That one boy she gave birth to
Those ten long years ago

Blamed himself for this.

Hello Ringo! Welcome to YWS as well. If you have any questions, or need help with something on the site, feel free to pm me. ^_~

Solace in religion she soon found.

I think this sentence explains the heart of your poems syntax (otherwise known as sentence structure) problem. You're using what is formally called an anastrophe, but can be recognized a lot easier by, "You sound like Yoda." Why talk like this? It sounds so much better to say "She soon found solace in religion". And a lot of your poem has weird structure like this, or it sounds grammatically bizarre.

I'm trying not to get too nit-picky on the language though, because I think before you focus on the language and more intricate parts of poetry, you need to figure out your subject. you're covering a large portion of time: from this child's birth to his mother's death. This causes a lot of problem for the poem itself because you're so focused on telling the story, that the reader gets neglected in becoming apart of the emotion. An important part of poetry is that the poem makes the reader feel, or think, or believe something. It has to affect the reader some how. I think the best way you could do this would be to pick a specific time period in one of the character's lives (son or mother?) and focus on that. Through imagery, metaphor, good word choice, you could tell us the story of how the son ruined the mother's life, how the mother feels, and how this makes the son feel. I think you would do best to grasp on to the moment of the son at his mother's funeral. The feeling that he ruined his mother's life is a strong one and could make an amazing poem.

But, if you would like to keep the time period longer, you're going to have a lot of work to do. Here is a poem by Ezra Pound that tells a story over a large amount of time, like yours: The River-Merchant's Wife. You can see, Pound wrote it so that each stanza is about a specific time, and he uses precise word choice and vivid images. All of his stanzas lead up to the important event: the husbands return. So how can you write your poem in the same fashion, and have it lead up to, with energy, suspense, and interest, the mother's death, rather than just tell about it?


I hope this helped! If you have any questions or would like more explanation on something, feel free to Pm me.

To be honest I really didn't feel this was my strongest work anyway, I'll see what I can do to edit it, but I've gone over this poem time and time again and I can't seem to get it right. X.X

This is really good and heartbreaking. I'm not sure if it's supposed to be or not, but I find it a strong point in your writing that you can put such strong emotion into your writing.

I think as a way of telling the story, it was good- I knew what the woman was going through, and I understood her general feelings. But, I dunno, I wasn't especially attached to her. I don't get how she can love her son so much, but still not try to hang on.

Ah, the woes of life

If you ever try to rewrite this, try and go more into her feelings, and maybe end it differently, cos I got confused by the way you suddenly jumped to the little boy at the end.

But if you ever do rewrite this, PM me, and I shall shower you with praise because I am now wondering if I have over-critisized this....eee feeling guilty.

Well, i really liked it. It seemed like your focus was more on telling a story than on becoming emotionally attached to the characters, and i found that quite enjoyable.

I thought you did a great job of describing the motives of the mother's destruction. (Did that make sense? I'll explain...) Normally, i for one, think it's hard to relate to or understand how anyone would be driven to suicide. You did a good job of providing realistic motivation though - overworked by her child, lack of religious presence, depression. So the total effect of your poem was realistic.

I might consider working her son into the middle sections as well? Maybe how he reacts to his mother's condition? That way it won't seem so random/spontaneous when you mention him in the last line again. It might help the flow.

A very enjoyable poem.
=)