Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Mothering Blackness

How does the author's choice of structure affect the clarity of meaning in the poem? Please use details and examples from the text to support your answer.

10 comments:

  1. As we discussed in class, the structure separates the mother from the daughter. This is vital to the meaning of the poem, because the readers can see both point of views. For example, we are aware the daughter is "creeping" back home, because she knows she has done something unexpected and feels ashamed. In her journey back home, she believes that her mother will not accept her, but the lines that are indented show otherwise. The other is mother is described at "mothering blackness" with "arms awaiting", and is aware of her daughters mistake but is still willing to accept her. Without the structure of the poem, as it is, the readers would not be able to differentiate between both characters and what was happening.

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  2. The structure of "The Mothering Blackness" by Maya Angelou associates the lines and ideas together in its structure. First the non-indented lines being associated with the prevailing indented lines and then the association starts over again with the new non-indentation. Such as, "She came home running/back to the mothering blackness/deep in the smoldering blackness," these lines are associated and then the next two lines are associated(Angelou 1-3). Therefore, the poem can be broken down into six associating sections with each non-indent beginning a new section. If read in sections it holds more clarity and is more understandable. The poem also doesn't begin each line with capitalization which makes the ideas and lines fell more connected.

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  3. “The Mothering Blackness”, by Maya Angelou, is structured in a unique way showing that there are two people rather than one. When reading the poem as a whole, and not considering the structure, the reader would infer that the poem is consistently referring to one person returning home. The non-indented lines of the poem portray that the girl is coming home, only with frozen dreams and tears on her face. This evidently shows that the girl has committed an act against what she has been taught; she has made some sort of mistake. Because the narrator mentions the girl “came down creeping,” it presents the idea that she will not be accepted with open arms. On the other hand, the indented lines of the poem represent the mother and how she is waiting for her daughter’s return. The indented lines retell the same story as the girl but the narrator also mentions that that the mother is present and is longing for her daughter’s return. The fact that the narrator mentions the same lines (indented), “She came home running/ here to the black arms waiting/ now to the warm heart waiting”, tells the reader that the mother knows her daughter will someday return to her. Although she believes that the mother will not take her back, the mother is actually waiting there for her, to take her in.

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  4. In my opinion, the structure helps create a balance within the poem thus making it easier for the reader to understand. The poem seems to be broken into three parts, each part containing five stanzas. The first part starts and ends with the line “she came home running” and this line gives the audience insight that she is running home on urgent matters. The second part starts and ends with the line “she came down creeping” and as we discussed in class this line creates an image that the girl is begging. The third part starts and ends with the line “she came home blameless” in order to state that the girl’s deeds have been forgiven. Based on the structure the reader is able to comprehend that this girl ran away from home (for an unknown reasons) and she regrets leaving home thus comes back begging her mother. The poem as a whole portrays that the meaning was a mother’s forgiveness towards her children.

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  5. The structure of the poem "Mothering Blackness" by Maya Angelou is significant to the poem as a whole because it makes it easier for the reader to identify and differentiate the two speakers in the poem, which. The non indented lines represent the daughter, while the indented lines represent the mother. The lines that represent the daughter state that "she came down creeping", indicating that she was returning home begging for forgiveness from her mother because she did something she was not supposed to do. The daughter believed that her mother was not going to accept her because of what she did. However, "the black arms" were waiting for the arrival of her daughter, demonstrating that the mother has an unconditional love for her daughter.

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  6. The poem "The Mothering Blackness" by Maya Angelou has a very distinctive structure. The way some stanzas begin are very different from any other poem. This structure gives the poem a different way in which the readers can associate. The usage of words as "running", "creeping", and "blameless" are significant because it emphasis the daughters intensions of retiring to her home, where her mother is their ready to recurve her back. This structure affects the poem by demonstrating and putting aside how this daughter tried to return to her home, but at the same time it demonstrates how ashame she is for what she had committed. Commonly, when one is ashame one tends to not look up straight and in a "run" from the action we have committed. Finally, the whole stucture of the poem and stanzas gives an image of a daughter who is embarrased from what she has done, her actionns were not something she was taught.

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  7. I wasnt present at the time of the discussion but Alejandra helped me out today. I believe that the author's use of structure affects the clarity of the poem by using the indenting to seperate the mother and daughter relationship. The reader is able to view both sides of their emotions and point of view of the daughter's descision to come home.

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  8. Maya Angelou's poem "Mothering Blackness is structured so that the readers can differentiate between the mother and the daughter within the poem. For example, the last stanza is begins with "She came home blameless" and the next two lines are indented which are the one's that describe the mother "black yet as Hagar’s daughter..tall as was Sheba’s daughter" and the last two lines are the describe the daughter, "threats of northern winds die on the desert’s face..She came home blameless." In doing so the author achieves at having a comprehensible poem that separates the actions of the repentant daughter from the forgiving mother, which makes the subject more clear.

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  9. Well in my opinion. There are some points in which the poem is clear because of certain words that were used (the diction), but in other terms, there are some parts that make the text unclear to understand. For example, when the text refers to the biblical references. If the reader is not aware of the biblical references used, then the reader does not really understand what Angelou was trying to say. Although, the structure does include context clues in order to clarify certain parts of the text. The structure also helps the reader understand what parts of the poem talks about which character. For example, there are certain breakings that talk about the daughter, and there are other breakings that talk about the mother that is forgiving. Last, but not least,the structure is important because it creates a sense of calmness that makes the reader read the poem slowly in order to understand the context.

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  10. "The Mothering Blackness" by Maya Angelou, is uniquely structured in a manner in which the reader can differentiate between the two characters being addressed. The first character, being the daughter, is introduced in the first line and is described as having a guilt, or having failed at something. With diction such as "creeping" and "tears" the reader can make an inference about the true feelings of this character. The second character, being the mother, is introduced and described through the indented lines of the poem. This character seems to be forgiving and phrases such as "arms waiting" and "heart waiting" are sufficient evidence for the author to believe so. The division within the poem is to separate these two characters, and by doing this the author gives the poem its final structure.

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