I Ask My Mother to Sing

"Mother to Son" by Langston Hughes (1922)

Like Lee’s poem, Langston Hughes’s poem includes a mother in the title. The mothers are important in both poems. In Lee’s poem, the singing of the mom and grandma communicates pain and resilience. In Hughes’s poem, the words of the speaker’s mom articulate hardship and fortitude. In both poems, the matriarchal figures and the speakers have clearly defined roles. Lee listens to his mom and grandma’s song, and Hughes absorbs his mom’s life lessons. Lee doesn’t sing with them, and Hughes doesn’t talk back to his mom.

"The Catholic Bells" by William Carlos Williams (1935)

Williams’s poem from the early part of the 20th century has a lot in common with Lee’s poem from the 1980s. As with Lee, Williams builds his poem with deliberate free verse. There is no rhyme scheme or prescribed meter, yet all stanzas are quatrains, and each line features around five to eight syllables. In Lee’s poem, the singing of his mom and grandma generates the images. In Williams’s poem, the sound of the church bells creates the images. The speakers in both poems retain their distance. Apart from not identifying as a Catholic, little is known about the speaker in “The Catholic Bells.