Mothers

In the poem “Mothers" the speaker talks about her unchanging relationship with her mother.  She incorporates her mother’s struggle although it isn’t vaguely shown. The tone/attitude of this poem is very gloomy and sad.  This poem was basically a flashback of her mother and things she experienced. There were a lot of personal examples and occurrences that were revealed. The speaker uses words like ‘dark’ and ‘night’ to describe the atmosphere. I believe the thematic statement in this poem would be “You have to experience pain before you endure the pleasure”. The common motif in this poem would be remembrance. The word ‘remember was very prevalent throughout the poem. This shows the importance of remembering things and reflecting on the importance of them.  Nikki Giovanni also includes her present life in the end of her poem. She teaches her son something her mother taught her when she was kid. However , the reader could assume that this poem had some significance along with it. Her son learned the poem and recited it to her mother, to convey a message. The message that she was taught was now being passed down to her son. The importance of this poem was to inform as well as highlight the result of struggles and they are set in stone to tell a story.