Aysweria Naathan
IB SL English Y1
17-Oct-2006
To My Mother
“To my mother” a poem written by George Barker is about a boy encouraging his mother to come out of her sorrows. The persona of this poem is encouraging his mother to fight her sorrows and overcome them because he has a lot of “faith” in her and also “loves” her. The message George Barker conveys through this poem is that we should not let our loved one in pain or sorrow but help them conquer over the sadness by showing affection and “love”, and having “faith” in them. The poet successfully conveys his message through the use of a variety of poetic techniques such as; form, diction and imagery.
The poem “To My Mother” is written in a specific from, which helps convey the message and the feelings of the mother across to the readers. This poem is a sonnet; it consists of fourteen lines which are pleasingly divided into an octave and a sestet, more like a Petrarchan or Italian sonnet. The octave describes to us the “seismic laughter” and how the mother was before all the sorrow taking control of her. It tells us that she was a comical yet caring; she was more of a role model to the other but she was following a “brass band” which could be referring to her beliefs. The sestet also talks about the mother but it is after all the sorrow fills her heart and mind, she “leans on the mahogany table” people lean on object when they are tired upset. In this case the mother is both upset and tired of being upset. The last two lines in the sestet describe how the behaviour of the mother has affected the son, the only strength, which the son can provide for his mother to break the wall of sadness is “love” and “faith”. The octave has a rhyme scheme of abcd abcd, the sestet has a rhyme scheme of efg efg, and each line follows an iambic metre. The iambic metre gives us a rhythm to read the poem, which also relates to the message and the mothers feelings. Normally when we feel sad, everything we do tends to be slow and at a steady pace, the iambic metre provides that steadiness in the reading. The metre also relates to the message, helping someone overcome their sorrows, the metre states the slow and sorrowful mind of the mother and the rhyme at the end of each line suggests the “love” and “faith” the son has toward the mother. By using the form of a Petrarchan or Italian sonnet the poet effectively state the message.
