Praise Song for My Mother Essay Questions

How does the speaker of “Praise Song for my Mother” employ metaphors to describe her mother?

Metaphor is at the heart of “Praise Song for my Mother.” There are seven overall within the poem (water, moon's eye, sunrise, fish's red gill, flame tree's spread, crab's leg, fried plantain smell), each of which is employed to characterize the speaker's mother. The metaphors employ the senses of sight, touch, smell, and taste to bring the memory of the mother to life. They serve to connect the mother to the poetics of the natural world, expanding the intimate relationship from one between two individuals to a more universal commentary on mother-daughter relationships.

How does repetition function within the poem "Praise Song for my Mother"? What effect does it have on the reader?

Repetition structures the poem’s first four stanzas. Each begins with the single-line phrase “you were,” which is an example of anaphora, a form of repetition in which the initial word or phrase is repeated. The repetition of the past-tense address emphasizes the loss felt by the narrator, as the reader is continuously reminded that the relationship is a thing of the past. The repetition of “to me” underscores the closeness of the relationship between mother and daughter. The structure of the third line of the first three stanzas, with the repetition of “and,” creates a compounding, additive effect, as though the narrator is capturing and redefining the mother in a series of adjectives. The doubling of the word “replenishing” in the fourth stanza too has this compounding effect.