Poems About Mothers, Motherhood, and Mothering

This is a beautiful picture of a mother and a child. 

I collected six of my poems about being a mother of a child and a daughter of a mother. Let me know if you like them.

Six Poems Celebrating Mothers, Motherhood, and Mothering

Mothers are central in our lives and, if you are a female, mothering is central to your life. Mothering is in our DNA because it is essential to the survival of our species. 

When I was writing poetry, I would often find that I thought I was writing about one thing, but the poem would turn out to be about some aspect of motherhood. It seems my unconscious had some ideas that needed to be expressed.

I came to motherhood myself at a relatively advanced age.  I was in my 40's when I adopted my son. There is a favorite little saying--you might call it a poem--that is common among adoptive mothers.

You grew

not under my heart, 

but in it. 

I've been told by parents who have both adopted children and natural born children that the love they feel for these children is the same. I believe them. 

Each of these six poems looks at a different aspect of motherhood from being a mother-in-waiting-to child-raising to the death of a mother.

Click the link above to see my poems. Let me know how you like them.

Poems for Labor Day

It’s Labor Day on Monday, September 3, 2012 so I thought a poem about the working men and women of America would be appropriate. One of the most famous poems on this topic was written by Walt Whitman in 1860.

I Hear America Singing
by Walt Whitman

 

I HEAR America singing, the varied carols I hear;

Those of mechanics—each one singing his, as it should be, blithe and strong;

The carpenter singing his, as he measures his plank or beam,

The mason singing his, as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work;

The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat—the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck;

The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench—the hatter singing as he stands;

The wood-cutter’s song—the ploughboy’s, on his way in the morning, or at the noon intermission, or at sundown;

The delicious singing of the mother—or of the young wife at work—or of the girl sewing or washing—Each singing what belongs to her, and to none else;

The day what belongs to the day—At night, the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,

Singing, with open mouths, their strong melodious songs.

Click Here for more Walt Whitman poetry

 

It’s so noble, so glorious, so beautiful.  But that was over 150 years ago. 

 

What if Walt Whitman were writing today? 

 

Maybe, he’d write something like this.

 

I Hear My Workplace Singing

By Catherine Giordano

I hear my workplace singing, the varied sounds I hear

I hear my telephone ringing, or buzzing or singing

I hear my computer keys, clicking and clacking

I hear the air-conditioning, droning and strumming

And my co-workers, each in his cubicle, are yakking

I hear my computer singing, so many sounds I hear

I hear, at the start of my day, Windows chiming

I hear all sorts of binging and pinging and dinging

I hear Email incoming and appointments alerting

And the guy, in the next cubicle, is humming.

I hear my overworked body singing, the weary sounds I hear

I hear my frenzied brain multi-tasking

I hear my stomach churning, my lungs sighing

I hear, in my mind, a deadline clock ticking

And someone, in a nearby cubicle, is snacking and lip-smacking.

I hear all the sounds of the day—and at night I hear the TV blasting

As I sit there, couch potato-ing and de-stressing.
 

With my apologies to Walt Whitman.

 

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One Picture is Worth A Thousand Words

Sometimes it is difficult for me to decide what picture to use to illustrate a poem. Yesterday was one of those days.

I had four very different pictures, and each picture could give a different meaning to the poem. 

I finally settled on the bride and groom, but I could have used the trolls, or the picture of Glenn Close and Michael Douglass portraying their characters in the movie “Fatal Attraction”, or the old-timey postcard.

All four pictures show couples, but the poem takes on a whole different meaning because of the associations we have with each picture. It is akin to the connotations of words.

Use the comments section to tell me which picture you think works best with the poem?  Be sure to include your reasons for picking it.  

 Commentary
 

Ha!
Just kidding!
      Or . . .
          maybe not.

Go up to a couple:

Say to one of them,
You know,
        you could
               do better.

 © 2012 Catherine Giordano

 

http://www.cappex.com

 

 

http://img.ezinemark.com

 

 

 

 

 



Monday, Monday, Can't Trust That Day

“Monday, Monday, Can’t trust that day.”  That’s a line from a 60’s song by the “Mamas and Papas.”

 
Monday is the worst day for news print poetry. I usually struggle to find the poem for the day.
 
There are two main reasons for this. (1) The Orlando Sentinel is especially thin on Mondays.  (2) The “B” section of the paper is about finances.  Financial news is important, but it seldom makes for a good poem. Usually, there’s just not enough emotion in it.
 

“Every other day, every other day,
Every other day of the week is fine, yeah
But whenever Monday comes, but whenever Monday comes
You can find me cryin' all of the time.”

I’m cryin’ ‘cause I’m strugglin’ to find the poem of the day in Monday’s paper.