Langston Hughes "Mother to Son"

Malissa Reid
February 11, 2009
Period 1


“Mother to Son”

First off lets start with the poem I chose. The poem I chose was “Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes. As I was reading this poem I noticed the author used several metaphors, I liked the language, and I also found this poem very inspirational.
Lets start off by examining the several uses of metaphors in the poem. “Life for me ain`t been no crystal stair. It’s had tacks in it, and splinters, and boards torn up, and places with no carpet on the floor- Bare”. The author uses metaphors to describe what her life was like. Metaphors tend to make poems more interesting, which gives the reader an imagination of what her life was really like. Maybe it wasn’t so good if it’s had splinters and boards torn up and it wasn’t like a “crystal stair”. I also find he uses a language to persuade the reader, which leads me to the next reason why I really liked this poem.

While reading this poem I noticed it didn’t contain any rhyme, but yet contained very little repetition. “Life for me ain`t been no crystal stair”. This shows that every poem doesn’t always have to rhyme if it contains some type of rhythm to keep it flowing.

Another reason why I liked this poem is because I found it inspirational. In the poem Langston Hughes uses the phrase “Don’t you fall now-”. This phase may have been used to inspire the reader not to give up. Have your teacher ever said “no, it’s ok you’re almost done it’s great”, when they see you becoming frustrated? Well it’s kind of like what Langston Hughes does in the poem when he states “Don’t you fall now-”.

I really like this poem because of the use of metaphors, languages the author uses, and also because of the inspiration the author gives the reader.