Mothers

Black American poet Nikki Giovanni wrote the poem “Mothers” in 1972; it appears in the collection My House. “Mothers” is written in six stanzas of unrhymed free verse. Written in the early years of a rich and prolific career spanning multiple forms of media, “Mothers” considers motherhood and parent/child relationships through a shifting lens including the speaker’s observations from both the childhood and adult experiences. The poem stresses the significance of intergenerational bonds by drawing a thread through mother, daughter, and grandchild. At the same time, the poem offers strong individual portraits of both the speaker and her mother. The poem describes the first time the speaker sees her mother as an individual, distinct from the speaker herself and larger than the singular role as mother. Quietly, the poet reminds the reader that motherhood, weighted in responsibility, can yet be a source for beauty and joy.

Poet Biography

Yolande Cornelia “Nikki” Giovanni, Jr., was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, June 7, 1943. Soon after her birth, her family moved to Cincinnati, Ohio. She and her sister kept close ties to their grandparents in Knoxville, where Giovanni returned at 15 to attend Austin High School. She entered her grandfather’s alma mater, Fisk University—a historically Black university in Nashville, Tennessee—on an early entrant program.