The Woman Speaks to the Man who has Employed her Son
Her son was first made known to her
as a sense of unease, a need to cry
for little reasons and a metallic tide
rising in her mouth each morning.
Such signs made her know
That she was not alone in her body.
She carried him full term
tight up under her heart.
She carried him like the poor
carry hope, hope you get a break
or a visa, hope one child go through
and remember you. He had no father.
The man she made him with had more
like him, he was fair-minded
he treated all his children
with equal and unbiased indifference.
She raise him twice, once as mother
Then as father, set no ceiling
On what he could be doctor,
earth healer, pilot take wings.
But now he tells her he is working
for you, that you value him so much
you give him one whole submachine
gun for him alone.
He says you are like a father to him
she is wondering what kind of father
would give a son hot and exploding
death, when he asks him for bread.
She went downtown and bought three
and one-third yards of black cloth
and a deep crowned and veiled hat
for the day he draw his bloody salary.
She has no power over you and this
at the level of earth, what she has
are prayers and a mother’s tears
and at knee city she uses them.
She says psalms for him
she reads psalms for you
she weeps for his soul
her eyewater covers you.
She is throwing a partner
with Judas Iscariot’s mother
the thief on the left-hand side
of the cross, his mother
is the banker, her draw though
is first and last for she still
throwing two hands as mother and
father.
She is prepared, she is done. Absalom.
Lorna Goodison
There are several poems that are prescribed texts for the study of literature in the subject known as English B at the level of the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) in the regional examinations of the Caribbean Examinations Council. They are selected from quite a range of literature in English, most of them Caribbean/West Indian, English (British), American and African, treating a wide variety of subjects and interests. Most are modern, although a few go back to the Romantic or Victorian eras.
They allow a thorough study of literature, particularly the techniques of poetry because of the way the various poets treat their subjects. Many of them are very interesting to read, some generate excitement or provoke serious thought on issues, many offer situations to which the students who study them may be able to relate.
One of these is the poem “The Woman Speaks to the Man Who Has Employed Her Son” by Jamaican poet and short story writer Lorna Goodison. She is among the foremost West Indian poets and recently served as Poet Laureate to Jamaica. Many of her poems are known for their treatment of women, approaches to womanhood and social issues relating to gender and the struggle of poor women surviving in a contemporary society.
“The Woman Speaks to the Man Who Has Employed Her Son” is one of those. It is a free verse poem without rhyme; a cross between a narrative and a monologue, whose plain, undecorated style enhances its bleak, joyless, tragic tale, tone and circumstances. The plot, the poetic (or dramatic) situation, the dialogue and the characters involved arise from a certain background – specific to Kingston, Jamaica, but closely related to the wider Caribbean with the bleak and tragic social contexts of today.
It is about a poor woman, a single parent, who brings up a son without any help or attention from his absent father – a common situation in the Caribbean. She hopes he will grow up to a profession that will take her out of poverty, but he is recruited by a gangster boss to be a gunman. As soon as she realises this, his mother harbours a sense of hopelessness, trying to care for and protect him, but already convinced that she can only prepare for the day when he will be killed like so many other young gunmen. The poem is built on irony – a technique that prevails throughout.
The title indicates that the woman is speaking to her son’s employer, but there is irony in that. She does not really speak to him, never sees or meets him. The poem has a speaking voice (persona) who, in a monologue, narrates the woman’s story and it is this voice that addresses the “employer”. But one gets the impression that he does not hear, and the son’s future is doomed. The woman’s limited consciousness sees this gangster boss in innocent terms as her son’s “employer”, but is wise enough to know that he is merely an agent of death. Her son tells her he is “like a father to him”, but the irony does not escape her. In the poem, the woman continues to be both mother and father to the hapless boy. This “employment” will bring him “hot and explosive death”, not “bread” – not a living, not an income.
The vacancy of the absent father is not filled by this “employer”, who brings doom rather than salvation to both mother and son. The poem makes use of several images and metaphors in each stanza. The early stanzas turn these to vivid descriptions of her pregnancy, which underpin her deep love and care for the boy. She carried him “tight up under her heart” – both metaphor and imagery – a physical image of pregnancy and a metaphor for her heartfelt care – her love.
The description of the absent father continues to be contained in irony – he was “fair minded”, treating “all his children with equal and unbiased indifference”, which would be humorous if it were not so grim.
Then the poet employs heavy and consistent Christian and Biblical allusion – references to the woman turning to her Christian faith to strengthen her, and references to the Bible. There is mention of her prayers – “she says psalms” for her son, but the narrator in the poem also tells the employer “she reads psalms for you” and “her eye water covers you”. These are veiled allusions to a plea for retribution – that the employer will pay for what he has done. There is a sense of a cry for vengeance.
The final stanza goes further with the references to the crucifixion of Christ. The woman is drawing on her faith for protection just as she is drawing on the “partner”, a monetary partnership engaged in by the poor to bring them periodic receipt of a sum of money. But there is the suggestion that it is betrayal and death for which the woman prepares.
The poem deepens with the final word “Absalom”. This is taken from the Old Testament of the Bible and heightens the Christian allusions. Absalom is Hebrew for “father of peace”, and was a name given to a son of David who rebelled against his father and was killed. It reflects very grimly the tragic outcome the woman envisions. She can see nothing else ensuing from her son’s “employment” by this new “father” figure. It is indeed a statement about the destruction of young boys by the criminally minded who turn them into gunmen.
