ARTIST STATEMENT

1. My audience for this project is everybody because we all have a mother or a person in our lives that play’s the mother role. Before reading this, I want people to know a mother doesn’t necessarily have to be a female that birth you, it can be anyone in your life that plays the mother role, even if she isn’t related to you.
2.  I want my audience to learn the significance of mother-hood.
3. Yes, I think they’ll be able to learn this because I think I analyzed it very well, I explained what it meant to the author and what it meant to me.
4. I brought a different perspective that someone else couldn’t bring because I analyzed it from my point of view and nobody has the same perspective or think the same.
5. I learned how significant and important a mother role in society is.
6. I would still like to learn what pushed him to write this poem. In other words, when did the author finally realize the significance of his mother and noticed he regretted so much.
7. The class helped me gain a better understanding of the poem. I actually didn’t know that the mother passed away until we discussed it in class. My peer helped me notice things that needed changing.
8. My thinking about poetry changed positively. I learned the importance of poems and that they are actually very effective. Before I listened to this, I thought most poems was just reading words from the paper, but this poem was fulled with emotions.
9. If I had another week to work on this, I discuss why the authors rhetoric choice to not reveal the death of his mother until the end.
10. The last thing I want to tell my audience is that I worked very hard on essay to make sure it’s very detailed and interesting, so it holds their attention.

Mother Knows Best!

A mother plays a significant role in her child’s development and nothing can come close to the love she feels for her children. Raising children comes with its own share of frustrations and aggravation, from the needy new born baby that requires a lot of attention to the moody teenager, a mother’s job is anything but easy. Usually, a mother puts her children before anything else which most times means putting aside her own comfort and happiness. Not only do mothers support their children and make sure they’re always on the right path, but they also hold the whole family structure together. Never underestimate the influence that a mother truly has over a child. It may not always appear this way, but children look to their mother for guidance on how they should deal with situations.

In the spoken word DearMum, the author expresses his unconditional love for his mother and acknowledges that he wasn’t perfect because he put her through a lot but yet she still continues to love him endlessly. He used a lot of tools to give the audience a stronger, compelling delivery such as hand gestures, music, edits on the screen, the background he recorded in and even the clothes he was wearing.

“To the woman who was left sleepless from dusk until dawn, with weakness upon weakness for nine months long, telling herself it would all be worth it soon as she rests short for when she finally made it through to the hospital ward”, the author said in his spoken word. He started off by expressing the struggles his mom when through during her nine months of pregnancy. “It was love at first sight when she saw me”, he continued. His mother was in pain for nine months but she dealt with it and he basically explained their relationship as love at first sight. She could never sleep whenever he was gone, she would even stay up all night next to the phone, although he would never call. She wanted to make sure he was safe and secure before she could actually go to sleep. She made a lot of sacrifices and didn’t once ask for a reward because that’s what mothers do. A relationship with your mom is very significant and priceless and is one that should be cherished forever.

It was pretty obvious that the author felt guilty during the poem regarding the way he treated his mother in the past. He repeatedly said he’s sorry for everything even the simple little things such as his dirty rooms. “I’m sorry for leaving you as soon as you taught me how to crawl, I’m sorry for saying “ugh” every time you would ask me to complete a simple chore”, he explained enthusiastically.  “Most of all, I’m sorry for the pain that I caused, for the nights you didn’t sleep and for all those missed calls, for the fights we had and for all the broken walls, the dirty room with the messy floors and for the clothes that weren’t packed back into their drawers”, he continued. He expressed the resentment he had towards the way he treated his mom and asked for forgiveness. He regrets the promises he couldn’t fulfill and expresses his guilt towards himself. Towards the end of the poem, the audience found out that his mom passed away. I think he didn’t reveal the death of his mother until the end of the poem because he wanted us to get a better understanding of why he’s writing this poem.

In general, he was explaining how much his mother has done for him and how much she sacrifices just to make sure he’s okay. His mother was always there for him no matter what for example, calling him late at night to make sure he was safe. Predominantly, motherhood comes with a lot of aggravations and sacrifices but brings you happiness as well. He is saying being a mother is one of the hardest but most important jobs out there. The author not only make claims about his mother, but he always makes claims about mother-hood in general.

In conclusion, I think this was an amazing poem that expressed not only the significance of the authors mother to him, but also mothers in generally. From the beginning of the poem he expressed the struggles his mother went through during her nine moths of pregnancy. He then continued by explaining how she was up calling him whenever he was out to make sure he was safe. It was obvious during this poem that he felt a great amount of guilt because he kept apologizing for the things he had done, while wishing he could change the things he didn’t do. At the end, the audience learned that his mom passed away and this added a lot of emotion to the poem. Overall, this poem is very emotional and grabs the audience’s attention based on the way the author expressed his love for his mother.

Reflection

I learned a lot about this poem and I’m actually glad we had a chance to work on this piece in class. First off, I learned a lot about the author and what his mother meant to him. Not a lot of people realize the significance of their mothers and/or actually do anything to show that they care. Making this poem was a tribute to his mother even if she’s not here with him today. Another thing I learn from this poem is that mothers make a lot of sacrifices. It made me sit and actually look into the relationship me and my mother have and I could make connections to his. Mothers take on a great role in society.

I also learned a lot about spoken word poems. I learned that there are lots of tools you can use to give you a better delivery. For example, the music, clothes you wear, background and hand -gestures can all affect the way your audience views your piece. That changes the mood of your poem. I’m sure if the author was just standing and reading what he wrote off of a paper, we wouldn’t feel the same way about his piece. We wouldn’t feel emotionally connected to it because it would just be boring. So the way that you deliver your work to your audience can give you a positive or negative result.

We had to draft our expectations, the pre-draft, the rough draft and now the final draft. These steps made it very easy because it organized my thoughts and then allowed me to keep elaborating on it. I feel like it benefited me, making the final draft much easier than it would be if I just typed my whole essay at once and just posted it.

I chose to do this format because I wanted to really analyze this poem and give all the details I wanted. I didn’t want to limit myself to anything so I felt like if I did the analytical essay, I would be able to write about his most important parts. This helped me understand the poem because I actually had to go back and listen to what he said to get a better understanding of it so I could explain it in my essay. I could use this in the future if I had another piece I have to analyze. I can use these steps (expectations, pre-draft, rough draft, final draft) to help me develop a well-detailed analysis.

My partners for the peer review was Najah and Egbe A.