Summary Of Amy Olson-Binder's Knitting

The word choice in the poem creates a tension and suggests violence the most. The word choice also creates a grimmer element “which is marked by a series of words beginning with ‘death’ in the first stanza and ending with ‘clinging’ in the last and including such words as ‘unfrown,’ ‘battered,’ ‘scraped,’ ‘beat,’ ‘hard’ in the middle stanzas” (Janssen 43). When the speaker says “At every step you missed, my right ear scraped a buckle” makes it clear that child is being hurt and abused; perhaps the actual reason the child’s guilt filled and helpless mother is unhappy, angry and disappointed (Roethke 126). The words that the poet chooses are hence very significant to understand the poem clearly.

I will start with the world, “heartsick” because this word relates to the feelings that the granddaughter felt for the yarning of the comforts of her home. The sorrows drowned out by the panels of the quilt her grandmother made her. The comfort of her home away form home for those nights she felt sad and wanted to be home. The granddaughter could easily drown her fears and tears into this quilt and be reminded of the strength and the bond she has with her Grandmother. “Heartsick” was an powerful word to use to understand how the granddaughter must have felt on those miserable days. But, to tie it in to the quilt like she did was like she quilted the words together to show how and what it meant to be alone and struggled and how the granddaughter coped with her emotions. I believe that the word loose, this word was placed all the way at the end of the poem. I feel like this word speaks loudly throughout this poem significance. This poem is about the granddaughter being blown “loose” by the natural forces that cary us. In this case she is blowing “loose” of her home and her centric ideas. To explore and be “loose” in the world to experience it through her eyes to develop her own point of view by simply enacting her own beliefs and adopting others. I felt compelled to react to the word, “slant”. “Slant”, has a great meaning in this poem for it is used in the beginning of the poem. Slant can mean a

The author uses imagery in the poem to make the experience of this one woman stand out vividly. The first lines of the poem say "she saw diapers steaming on the line / a doll slumped behind the door." The phrase "steaming on the line" is especially strong, making me

People deal with grief in different ways. As a small child, the way the narrator handles uncertainty and pain is distressing, yet also expected. She finds distractions in the furniture and decorations. The child notices a

She then cringed as she conjured up the image of Samuel and the expression on his face when she had told him she was marrying someone else. The hurt in his eyes had burned a hole in her heart that remained to this day. She quivered all over, not from the nasty cold, but as a reaction to her thoughts as they drifted back to that ghastly day and to the moment she realized she was pregnant with Owen’s baby: the day her life ceased to exist as she had known it.

In this poem Lucille Clifton is telling the experience she had when she had an abortion. In the title she announces directly what the poem is about. The fact that she uses the adjective ‘lost’ gives the impression that it has not been done on purpose or that she was not aware of what she was doing.

The use of symbolism and imagery is beautifully orchestrated in a magnificent dance of emotion that is resonated throughout the poem. The two main ideas that are keen to resurface are that of personal growth and freedom. Furthermore, at first glimpse this can be seen as a simple poem about a women’s struggle with her counterpart. However, this meaning can be interpreted more profoundly than just the causality of a bad relationship.

She says that the "child" had been by her side until "snatched from thence by friends, less wise than true" (line 3). Basically she is saying a trusted person “snatched” her work from her without permission to take them to England to be printed. Had it not been for her brother-in-law taking her work back to England and getting them printed they may have never been known. The intimacy and feeling she shares with her work is like that of a mother and child and that bond was infringed upon when her work was "exposed to public view" (line 4). The intrusion of her brother-in-law getting her work printed is the cause of feeling that follow. Ironically the next thing she talks is the shame she has been thrust upon her by not being able to perfect the work before it was published. This is illustrated in line five where she writes, “Made thee in rags,” as to say her work is like a child dressed in rags.

It is possible that the narrator is trying to reassure herself in this passage by claiming that the child was never made, but then why write the poem to her unborn children?

The last line in the poem “and since they were not the ones dead, turned to their own affairs” lacks the emotions the reader would expect a person to feel after a death of a close family member. But instead, it carries a neutral tone which implies that death doesn’t even matter anymore because it happened too often that the value of life became really low, these people are too poor so in order to survive, they must move on so that their lives can continue. A horrible sensory image was presented in the poem when the “saw leaped out at the boy’s hand” and is continued throughout the poem when “the boy’s first outcry was a rueful laugh…the hand was gone already…and that ended it”, this shows emphasis to the numbness the child felt. The poem continues with the same cold tone without any expression of emotion or feelings included except for pain, which emphasizes the lack of sympathy given. Not only did the death of this child placed no effect on anyone in the society but he was also immediately forgotten as he has left nothing special enough behind for people to remember him, so “since they were not the one dead, turned to their affairs”. This proves that life still carries on the same way whether he is present or not, as he is insignificant and that his death

To the right, the cloth has opened to the viewer a lush landscape. Smoke fills the landscapes air as contrasting reds and pinks of the ongoing battle behind them provide knowledge to the viewer that this is not the end of the long going war. Our eyes make its way back to the framed family of three. A young baby who just finished suckling away at his mother’s breasts, is the only invitation the viewer has into this painful scene. The baby looks directly at the viewer as his mother cradles him in her arm, creating a beautiful oval framing of the two. The mother’s face is not seen as she places her head on the hand of her deceased solider husband, his lifeless fingers grasped by his young child. The family holds onto each other, creating a juxtaposition due to the harsh reality of their now broken family. The soldiers limp arm provides a parallel diagonal line mirroring the draping cloth behind him. Follow his arm downwards and we see his barren body still in uniform, his long hair sprawled across the floor. Next to him near his widowed wife’s feet, sits her crumpled bonnet; a symbol for the once young mother and wife whose life is in scrambles from the effects of the revolution. A look into the helpless child’s eyes creates a real sense of pathos for viewers as it appeals to the factual evidence that can be seen at the time. The American Revolution left plenty of widowed mothers and fatherless children.

Subject Matter: ‘The Wholly Innocent’ describes the emotions a foetus would have, from its point of view about the mother’s plan to get it aborted. The poem explains thoroughly how the foetus feels with detail that makes us feel empathic towards it. The summary of the poem in the last stanza is concluding the life the foetus had, before it was aborted, ending it in a tragic way. The poem does not mention anything about the mother’s point of view, mainly because the mother would only make excuses, which makes no difference to the foetus.

The third stanza of the poem expresses the emotional connection between the mother and the child having grown stronger. “O node and focus of the world” (11). Her child is the center of her world. This symbolizes just how important her child is to her, it was become the “focus” of her life. “I hold you deep within that well/ you shall escape and not escape-/ that mirrors still your sleeping shape;/ that nurtures still your crescent cell” (12-13). The “well” represents the woman’s womb that molds and “nurtures” that child while it sleeps. The part that speaks about the child escaping refers to the child no longer being inside of the mother yet always being a part of her. The mother will always have an emotional connection to her child.

"The Mother," by Gwendolyn Brooks, is a sorrowful, distressing poem about a mother who has experienced numerous abortions. While reading the poem, you can feel the pain, heartache, distress and grief she is feeling. She is both remorseful and regretful; nevertheless, she explains that she had no other alternative. It is a sentimental and heart wrenching poem where she talks about not being able to experience or do things with the children that she aborted -- things that people who have children often take for granted. Perhaps this poem is a reflection of what many women in society are feeling.

The child contemplates the river’s flow as he/she personifies the body of water using the sound imagery of laughing and singing (Tanikawa ll. 2, 5). The mother’s response that the sun and the skylark influence the river by tickling and praising recreates the idea of the innocence and happiness that radiates from children generally when they are in a safe community environment, one that is mediated by the mother. The imagery indicates a mother’s impact on her children and their actions. Her actions show well-deserved respect and love for her child because she does her best to keep them happy and light-hearted, sending them into a community where they are tickled by the sun, praised by the skylark, and “loved by snow” (Tanikawa ll. 3, 6, 9). When he/she is scared or needs help, children reflect to happy thoughts, like “being once loved” (Tanikawa l. 9). Finally, a mother’s love can be seen through an emotional/visual form of imagery, where “the mother sea / is waiting for the river to come home,” emphasized not only by the words but by the weight of the extra line in the final stanza (Tanikawa ll. 15-16). A mother demonstrates sheer love for her children by always waiting for them to come home, ensuring that they are safe, and becoming a shelter in which they can finally rest. Tanikawa re-enforces value of the mother-child relationship in showing it as the final resting place of the river/child winding its way