A deep, resonant voice answers when I call home.
My child is gone—
In his place is someone who resembles him,
only taller, size ten shoes.
In this poem the mother is mourning her child’s
transition from a young child towards becoming a
teen. She says that a ringing voice is telling her
that her baby is now grown up and doesn’t need
her anymore. He doesn’t need her assistance in any
matter of his life anymore.
Empty sneakers and dirty socks mark his passage down
vacant
halls. He wanders aimlessly, flexing against walls grown too
narrow, as tensely strung as the tennis racket he grips,
as easily punctured as the deflated hand of the batting glove
—
his passions are flung across the hours.
The mother further says that he is moving towards
carelessness as he is growing up. His life is going out of
order. He has no motive and no aspirations as he once had
when he was a child. Now his life is nothing but just as a
game of tennis, one shot here and the other there. His
passions are as ordinary as a tennis ball, quite ordinary
and least important.
He leaves a trail of teenage hunger—
half empty Coke cans, stale chips in an unclosed bag.
Intermittent impulses, quickly sated,
rarely fill his emptiness,
never end his searching.
The mother seems quite concerned about the emptiness
that is gulping her teen son’s life. She compares his life
to a pack of stale chips. As young teens are mostly not
interested in the future. Her son is no exception either.
The mother says that nothing is able to fill in the void in
the life of her son. He seems so demotivated and least
caring about his future.
Wailing guitars weave a cocoon
as he sits cross legged in a recess of his room,
his teeming emotions playing on a muted keyboard
She uses the word “wailing”, which means continuous crying. The
choice of word is not only representing the noise erupting from
guitar but are also a mirror to the mother’s cries and condition.
She is saddened over her and her son’s distance from each other,
in terms of age gap, emotional and mental growth.
The teen doesn’t share any of his emotions with his mother and
thus the mother feels that the boy is just like someone who is
mute in terms of any forms of sharing.
He tears at the seams
that hold us together
and sees in mother only ties to childhood
Choking him with nagging chores,
Cloying protection,
Closed doors.
Here the mother is using extreme language to explain the situation they
are facing as a family. She is saying that he is breaking away from the
bond that holds them together and that is needing each other as a family.
She says that he is no more interested in being part of their family,
physically or emotionally. It is as if the mother is mourning the death of
the relationship she used to have with her son when he was a child.
She says that he no more needs her protection or safety of his family, nor
he wants to help his mother in any of the home tasks. He has started to
not care about anything that is related to his family especially his mother.
Surliness is his knife
Cutting away the bonds.
Silence is his distance
Murmuring goodbye.
In the end, she is describing the death of their relationship in a
very painful way. She is saying that he is cutting their bond
with a sharp knife and is doing so relentlessly. It means that he
is being stubborn in distancing himself from his mother and he
is doing it knowingly and willingly.
The mother is saying that the silence and distance is killing her
because it is yelling goodbye from her son’s side.
ANALYZE FREE VERSE POETRY Annotate: Mark the end of
the longest line. Notice that from this point the stanzas
taper down to the shortest lines at the end of the poem.
Analyze: What does the shape of the poem on the page
suggest about the boy’s turbulent journey through
adolescence to adulthood.
Poets sometimes use the line lengths to create specific effects. Poets
sometimes use the visual space to create an added layer of meaning or to
provide a sense of structure. For example, such as a poem about recycling
that is written in the shape of a tree or a poem that is organized in stanzas
but lacks a rhyme scheme or meter.
(Answer: The appearance of the poem on the page gives an impression of
imbalance and struggle. The contrast of long and short lines in the first
stanza suggests the ups and downs of emotions, building to a peak in the
second stanza. The uneven line breaks continue to the last two stanzas, in
which regular, short lines seem to suggest a resolution to the turmoil and
conflict. The short lines at the end of the poem may represent the closed
door of childhood.)
WORDS OF THE WISER Notice & Note: In lines 18–23,
mark a comment that reveals an important insight about
the teen’s behavior. Analyze: What does this comment
suggest the speaker understands about her son
Words of the Wiser are words of insight, understanding or advice
offered by an older or wiser character and that the signpost often
suggests a theme in a piece of literature.
(Answer: The comment shows that the speaker understands that her
son is struggling to cut his “ties to childhood” and part of that
struggle involves separating himself from dependence on his mother.
CHECK YOUR
UNDERSTANDING
Have students answer the questions
independently.
Answers:
1. D
2. F
3. C
ANALYZE THE TEXTS
Possible answers: 1.The speaker’s use of personification shows that she is
unhappy about her appearance. Her word choice suggests that she is
creative and dramatic.
2. The repetition of these lines, with the image of momma “in the
bedroom/with the door closed” emphasizes the theme of leaving
childhood behind. It puts a focus on the speaker’s feelings of isolation
and need for parental understanding and support.
3. The dashes indicate longer pauses, suggesting the speaker is reflecting
on an unfamiliar situation. The dashes create a dramatic effect and
emphasize the speaker’s insights
. 4. The poet uses alliteration in lines 10–12: “a trail of teenage hunger
. . . / Coke cans . . . / Intermittent impluses,” and lines 15–16 contain
alliteration and rhyme: “Wailing guitars weave a cocoon / as he sits
cross legged in a recess of his room.” The repetition lends dramatic
emphasis and creates a rhythm that suggests the behavior being
described is repetitive.
5.The speaker’s comment that her son “sees in mother only ties to
childhood” in the context of how he uses “surliness” and “silence” to
distance himself from her suggests that she understands that creating
distance from his mother is a necessary stage in the transition to
adulthood
