Mothers & Sons

Mothers & Sons

Sons & Mothers

Mother’s relationships, input and importance to their sons and daughters has been always a close and endearing one. For African-Americans this relationship was tested wearingly throughout American history. In the past many obstacles were faced by African-American men that sometimes lead them to be absent in the household and The Women were the ones who had to bear the problems of raising children alone. The perseverance of a woman could be the thing that makes or fully breaks the single parent home, which we know already, is broken by definition; so the tenacity of the motherhood was and still is as important as it is today.

In the Book “Poems for Occasions” by Geoffrey O'Brien and Billy Collins they have a certain poem written by a profound poet. Langston Hughes a well known African-American poet wrote about this relationship in his poem called “Mother to Son” where he explains the roads a Single Mother goes through. In “Poems for Occasions” the beginning of the poem Langston writes “Well, son, I'll tell you: Life for me ain't been no crystal stair. It's had tacks in it, and splinters, and boards torn up, And places with no carpet on the floor --Bare”(55); the poem starts off with a sense of struggle and the tacks, splinters and a carpet less floor all signifies the positions she have stepped foot in along her past. We see the diversity of her situations when Hughes uses multiple metaphors to describe the different obstacles the floor conjures up that the mothers standing on. The floor represents the needed stability of one’s life with the binding relationship of a person has with their lives of limited freedom, this is understood because we know no one can walk on air, we all have to step foot somewhere but we just hope it’s comfortable were we lay.

I would like to take this in consideration with another poet named Tupac Shakur. He shows us another perspective on the relationship between a...

Similar Essays